Movie stars, socialites, and now wine bloggers?

The Flamingo Resort, Santa Rosa, circa 1959: it was the place to stay north of the bay within two years of its opening, a posh retreat for the Hollywood Jet Set. One could find the likes of Jayne Mansfield, dramatic and daring in her then-scandalous two-piece swimsuit, soaking up the sun poolside and presumably posing for the local paparazzo.

I remember our family trips to see my nana in Kenwood. We would motor up Highway 101 from Santa Clara all the way to the Highway 12 exit into downtown Santa Rosa, and would always drive past the Flamingo before turning south toward Kenwood and the Sonoma Valley. I profess a fondness for art deco and googie architecture, and even as a young kid was struck by the way the resort’s iconic tower—with flamingo perched atop—evoked all things exotic to me. It was the epitome of cool before I knew what cool really was. I knew the good life must be happening, right there in Santa Rosa. Little did I know at the time that I would someday return as part of a new revolution.

Fast-forward nearly fifty years: the Flamingo Conference Resort & Spa has undergone a recent major refurbishing, and the City of Santa Rosa has declared it a historic landmark. It is still the place to see and be seen, and it is, as was announced today, a place where wine bloggers from all over the U.S., possibly even the world, will convene October 24-26 for the North American Wine Bloggers Conference, the first event of its kind.

It purports to be a classic mix of yesterday’s hip, today’s hype, and tomorrow’s vinotechnolust. Sessions over the three-day conference will include speakers Alice Feiring and Gary Vaynerchuk as well as tasting competitions and a handful of Sonoma County vineyard walks. Of course, being that the greater bulk of us wine bloggers have only met online, the opportunities for glass-to-glass networking will be lively and legion. The big fun, I suspect, will be the Blind Tasting Challenge, which will have us testing our skills at identifying grape varietals and regions within each of the twelve Sonoma County appellations.

I’m going to be there. In late October, you can probably expect to see more than one report from me about the experience here on Winehiker Witiculture, and I’m sure they will be interesting. In the meantime, to get a full sense of the event, today’s press release follows. It’s interesting all by itself.

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Changing World of Wine Journalism Focus of 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference

Wine Bloggers From Across America to Converge in Wine Country October 24-26

SONOMA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–America’s new wine media will gather in Sonoma County, California on October 24-26 for the first annual Wine Bloggers Conference. As the number and influence of wine bloggers grows, the Sonoma gathering will bring together hundreds of online wine scribes to discuss their impact, how to better impart information to wine lovers across the globe, and how to stake their claim as the next generation of wine media.

Organized by the OpenWine Consortium and Zephyr Wine Adventures, the three-day conference will take place at the Flamingo Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa, California. Wine Bloggers and other attendees will be treated to a series of seminars, vineyard walks, wine dinners, tasting competitions, and an exposition of mass wine blogging.

WINE BLOGGING CHANGING WINE JOURNALISM

“Wine blogging in America has exploded in terms of the number of people maintaining wine blogs as well as their impact on how wine lovers and the industry get their news,” said Joel Vincent, an organizer of the conference. “The wine blogging community has always been close-knit but never had an event of its own or opportunity to all come together to discuss the state of their efforts.”

In addition to wine bloggers, the conference is open to wine industry participants and media professionals that want to learn more about the wine blogging community and how it is changing the way wine information and news is communicated.

Among the speakers at the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference will be Alice Feiring, an award-winning writer and author who also maintains her own wine blog, and Gary Vaynerchuk, author, wine retailer and proprietor of the wildly popular Wine Library TV videoblog.

WINE BLOGGERS WIELDING INCREASED CLOUT

The sponsors of this year’s conference indicate the importance and growing influence of wine bloggers. Among those sponsoring the conference are Sebastiani Vineyards, the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau, Inertia Beverage Group, the Sonoma County Vintners Association, and the Sonoma Winegrape Commission.

“For decades wine writing and popular wine education has been dominated by a few visible critics and wine publications, yet the emergence of hundreds of wine blogs and their millions of readers is changing that old model,” explained Vincent. “Technology is changing the way the wine industry is covered and explored, and blogging has a broader and more democratic character. The bloggers attending this year’s conference are responsible for implementing these changes.”

More information on the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference can be found at: http://www.winebloggersconference.com/.

OpenWine Consortium is a global, non-profit wine industry association featuring the newest generation of emerging companies, wineries, publishers, services and a motivated community dedicated to changing the world of wine. Zephyr Wine Adventures is the leading provider of active hiking, biking, and multisport wine vacations in locations throughout the world.

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For an additional perspective on the upcoming conference, I invite you to read today’s post from Tom Wark’s Fermentation, titled The Wine Bloggers Conference is Here!

~winehiker

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 12:44 pm and is filed under grape squeezins, tasting venues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.