Also, if you know of a wine, beer or spirits related event that makes you think “Huh, I’m pretty sure The Deviant would find something cool there” … send me a line!! winedeviant at gmail dot com

To Saturday’s new posts!!

I fall in with the “Advocates” portion … maybe even more narrow of a focus, I’m a lover of Zin. It’s a wonderful grape, with brightness or deep, dark tones and a mouthfeel from light to viscous, sugary goodness. Zin is happy to be so many things to so many people – a serious beverage coming out of cooler climate regions, or a high alcohol bottle of naughtiness ready to party with the best of the group.

I had the extreme pleasure of starting my 2012 wine tasting season by attending the 21st Annual ZAP Festival in San Francisco on Saturday, January 27th. With 204 wineries pouring over 500 Zinfandels to 8,000+ attendees over a 3-day span, you can bet there was a whole lot of happy folks around in The City. I surely was one of them.

I chose my plan of attack based on the new festival guide addition the ZAP folks added this year, called Zin Tracks. Basically, it was a short 10-page guide that sliced and diced the wineries into different, more “digestible” categories to help you decide how you were going to make your way through the day. I chose the track called Zin Blends. Let us not forget, I’m on a mission to find something different in the industry, and Zin Blends sounded like my best bet from the “tracks” identified.

After tasting through 11 of the wineries from that track, plus a host of other wineries, my count has left me at about 40 wines tasted that day. To some, that’s a lot. To others, they ask “why so few?”. Two reasons: 1) I still needed to drive home from SF to Napa and 2) I needed to actually taste everything I was trying. Of course, I had a little something to help me along my tasting day (aside from the massive amounts of cheese and bread and water they served us), but even then, by the end of my day, I was happy to be done tasting.

Below are some of my wrap-up tweets showing my #zinfest favorites – you’ll find that over the coming weeks and months, I’ll be highlighting these wines and wineries. Net-net: I hit pay dirt for the ol’ blog, with at least a half-dozen new wines and wineries to talk about. To keep up on these, be sure to watch for the zinfest tag for my posts. This will be your clue that I tasted their wine during the ZAP event, and should definitely be intrigued to try their wine(s) out.

Sante!

Now, let’s not get crazy. There are some longstanding blogs out there that have content pushed on a much more frequent basis, with writers that are much more well known. But, I sure do want folks to know about my blog as something that provides a little entertainment to “the masses”. I’m not writing this for folks in the beverage industry alone. I’m really writing this 1) for me, 2) for entertainment and journaling purposes, and 3) for others to maybe learn and experiment with me along the way.

So, let’s just promise to have fun, and maybe you’ll even want to leave a comment here from time to time. And, there are plenty of ways to know when a new post has been made – just click on one of these:

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My friend Thea decided to host a bubbles party for a few of her friends, and it just so happened to fall on a Friday the 13th. Your loyal Wine Deviant (me) was in desperate need of a alcoholic beverage to wash away a difficult evening, and talked myself into finally driving northward for about 50 minutes to enjoy a gathering.

Along the way, as I often do, I had KCBS on the radio, and a  commentary article came on that sparked my need to write a quick piece for my blog. During that commentary, some statistics and numbers were mentioned stating that traditionally in this country, it’s uncommon for events and parties to be held, due to our almost irrational worry over Friday the 13th. And when these events or gatherings aren’t held, it affects a number of industries, including hoteliers, venue halls, catering companies, and many other supporting jobs. We’re practically doing our own economy in because of our silly Friday the 13th phobias! (Okay, “doing in” is a bit of an exaggeration, but the money we lose is ridiculous) So, as the reporter was wrapping up, she challenged her listeners to not be so worried about attending a party, get out there and enjoy ourselves. And if we still that superstitious, to take a non-monetary approach – just keep avoiding those black cats and walking under ladders. I couldn’t agree more, and only wished that I could have found an online version of the commentary. Instead, you can enjoy a little history video bit here.

So, in I walk to the party with some food items and my bottle of bubbly (which I didn’t get to taste that night – boo!), and start to enjoy conversations with other attendees. By the time everyone had arrived, our hostess came to a realization: there were 13 people at her home with 13 bottles of wine on Friday the 13th. WHOA, talk about being deviant! After our hostess noticed this, I brought up the news piece I had heard on the drive over with some of the guests, and many of us proclaimed that Friday the 13th days were some of our best days of the year.

In fact, this day was such a good day, I not only made 12 new acquaintances, but I found a lovely bottle of bubbly, a Jacques Pelvas Brut Rose, that I will be sure to review in the very near future. It was the stand-out of the night in my opinion, and definitely qualified as a deviant bottle in my book!

So, for all of those out there reading this, we have two more opportunities to deviate from all the phobia folks and enjoy a gathering on Friday the 13th. My challenge to all of you: hold a deviant party on April 13 and July 13, enjoy a few different bottles of your alcoholic beverage of choice (wine, beer or spirits), and be sure to report back on how you deviated with a joyfulness and free feeling!