After the Sonoma Grand Tasting, WBC09 attendees headed back into the Flamingo Room in the hotel for dinner. As you can see, the 250 or so attendees filled the room. The picture doesn’t convey the loud conversations, the laughter, or the overall enjoyment of the evening, but as everyone chose dinner tables, the energy level was high.

I spent much of dinner talking with Cheryl Beeso, the Director of Marking & Communications for the Winegrowers of Dr Creek Valley, and Linda Trotta from Teresina’s Family Vintners. My table was luck enough to be drinking Teresina Vintners wine with dinner. Linda explained to me that Teresina Vintners is a family-run vineyard that is named after one of the Trotta Family’s grandmothers, and the website goes on to explain more about the family’s history and tradition of making and sharing wine. While my tasting notes on the 2007 Zinfandel are lost somewhere between DC and Santa Rosa, I remember enjoying the wine and thinking that the Teresina Vintners was off to a good start. The website mentions that the 2007 Zinfandel sells for $24, which is a reasonable price for this food-friendly Zin.

Once dinner was over, Chris Alden, Chairman and CEO of Six Apart, Ltd. and the blogger behind R21: Thoughts on the Renaissance of the 21st Century, spoke to room full of wine bloggers, wine marketers, and winemakers about his vision for the future of social networks and blogging. It was interesting look at what basically is a change in who people think about the Internet. Alden described how each blogger develops individual communities within his/her own blogs. In doing so, the blog is used as the focus of his/her social networking environment, rather than using other social networking tools (Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc) as the common link to form the community. This photopraph of the presentation gives a good illustration of the point.

For me, Alden’s approach was a different way to think about blogging, and one that I would like to explore. While I use these other tools as part of my “community relations,” I haven’t been approaching my blog with the idea that it’s the center of my own “A Glass After Work” community. In reality, the change in philosophy won’t mean much of a visible change for the blog, but the concept has given me something to think about as A Glass After Work evolves.

Day 1 at WBC09 ended with an after-hours party hosted by the Russian River Valley Winegrowers, I admit, though, that instead of going to the RRVW party, I actually went back to my hotel room to give my palate and my body a rest.