Today marks the second anniversary of Decanting Monterey, A Central Coast Wine Blog! My main objective has remained to expose others to the depth and quality of our Monterey/Central Coast wines, often under-appreciated by wine snobs. I like to champion our vintners and their wines out of passion, not for profit.
When I started this effort 2 years ago, my operating model was a little different. Deep in the unvaccinated period of the pandemic, the blog initially was focused on wines from our own collection that we sampled at home, with or without our neighboring friends and our daughters, who quickly became known as the COVID Wine Pod – the only people we socialized with during the pandemic. It was 2 posts per week and mostly one wine at a time. Back then, some wineries had just reopened with their COVID procedures and we still weren’t venturing out much.
During Year 2, as we became fully vaccinated and boosted – and double boosted, we were able to get out to more local wineries at a more deliberate pace. I also moved to a single post per week. In Year 2, a majority of posts (28, to be precise) were based on event-driven or winery tastings and fewer individual, cellar-driven posts. As it should be! Those posts got longer and longer, with more and more wines presented, depending on the wines tasted during a single event. And the COVID Wine Pod was renamed as the Decanting Monterey Wine Pod!
I also doubled down on Monterey County wines, except when other Central Coast wines happened my way. With 65 tasting rooms in the county, I have not yet been to every one. And some of our local wineries don’t have a venue for sampling their wines.
During this second year, I quit writing my private Facebook blog to be able to dedicate more time to family and myself, as well as to enjoy social events without feeling like I was “working.” Combined, I have published roughly 766 wine reviews during the pandemic. Yikes! This is still the reference number you see at the end of each wine – helps me keep track and avoid duplicates.
I have some high-level stats to share with you about Year Two of Decanting Monterey!
- www.decantingmonterey.com hit the 5,000 “views” mark! This statistic is important to me. If you are seeing my blog on social media, please be sure to click the link and open it!
- 242 wines were reviewed on Decanting Monterey for the first time (plus a handful of re-tastes/repeats)
- 173 red wines were presented, as well as 52 whites, 15 roses, and a couple of oranges. 6 sparkling wines and 1 fortified wine were presented.
- Wines from 10 distinct California counties are represented, with 160 from Monterey, 20 from San Benito, 8 from Santa Cruz, 7 from Napa, and a sprinkling from Amador, Contra Costa, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, Ventura and Yolo counties. There was also 1 wine from New York and 2 from Chile!
- 49 different wineries were discussed, including 32 from Monterey County, 13 from elsewhere in the Central Coast AVA, plus 4 others out of the area.
- Bunter Spring slightly edged out Odonata and Parsonage as the most wines presented from a single winery (17 vs 16 wines presented).
- I went for the first time to some new or new-to-me wineries, such as Caraccioli, Corral, Kori, and Lepe. I am always happy to showcase someone new.
- And I presented our local wines to one Washington DC-based wine group, where they were extremely well received.
- I started the Decanting Monterey Instagram page – I’m not too adept here, but learning.
- Finally, I’ve started to assist the Monterey Chapter of the American Wine Society with its First Friday WinedUP events.
I COULD USE YOUR HELP! While I have some posts already queued up for Year 3, let me ask my mighty readers: Where should I visit next? Please leave me a comment on this post and let me know what some of your favorite, local places are to wine taste that I should not miss in Year 3! I have a long list of not-yet-covered wine tasting rooms and other wine venues to check out – happy to add to it. I don’t know what I don’t know. And, if you have not signed up for my free, weekly blog email, I encourage you to do so – the subscription button is on the right-hand side of each page of the Decanting Monterey website. I judge how well I am doing by how many views, subscribers, and comments I receive. Please help me spread the word and please feel free to comment on my posts! And follow my Facebook (@DecantingMonterey) and Instagram (@decanting_monterey) sites.
I remain grateful to those vintners who have comped me wine tastings, given me discounts, and especially those who have comped me bottles of wine! I am forever grateful to Bernardus, Bunter Spring and Chesebro for their generosity for that tasting. I have another class I am presenting in the fall to the Northern Virginia AWS to which I would like to add a big thanks to Idle Hour and Pierce Ranch for donating their wines. Rombi is another winery I would like to call out for providing wines for us to sample and review in this blog. I welcome such gestures! Those small acts of generosity have more than compensated me for my blog expenses. Now, if I could only figure out how to cover my airfare back to DC for the classes!!
So, here we go – Year 3! This should be a big one! Thanks for your support on this crazy journey.
Central Coast Sharon
© Decanting Monterey 2023
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