Golden Nose- Part 2

What a fun weekend it was at The Golden Nose event with the largest number of participants yet! Starting with the Friday night reception at the phenomenal Rockwell Museum of Western Art where we got to see the premiere of the new Ansel Adams exhibit and mingle with the other judges, to the Training and Judging sessions on Saturday, it is always a fun and educational experience.

Some of the highlights for me were a surprise special seminar for the returning alum of Golden Nose (4 of us) with Dave Whiting of Red Newt Wine Cellars and Peter Bell of Fox Run Vineyards, where we did a blind tasting of Rieslings from 6 different regions in the world. I guessed them all wrong, but I got to pick 2 of my favorite winemakers brains for a while.

Of course, the judging is always a treat and I had a real treat with another favorite Finger Lakes winemaker, Derek Wilber of White Springs Winery, as the group leader of my judging group. Derek's wealth of experience was a joy to listen to and learn from. To me, it's just a lot of fun to compare tasting notes with others who are passionate about wine. In my group of 6 judges, there were 2 that had vineyards, 2 of us were amateur winemakers, 1 worked at a winery, and 1 was a reporter for a Toronto newspaper. I don't know whether we were super picky or not, but our group did not give out one single Gold medal. But then again, we did not have any Riesling or Cab Franc flights to judge.

Then of course, there was the Awards Dinner with fabulous food and all the wine you could ever hope to taste. I also got to perform a couple of songs, but the star of the show was Paul, our host from the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, dancing to Devo's "Whip It", as performed by Virgil Cain, our entertainer for the night who is a sensational multi-instrumentalist and singer. I sure hope somebody got some video of Paul cracking the whip.

This was my third year at The Golden Nose and it just keeps getting bigger and better. I can't wait until next year!

The 1st picture is John from Fulkerson Winery and Glenda from the Seneca Lake Wine Trail welcoming the judges on Saturday morning.

This is my judging group led by Derek Wilber of White Springs Winery.