I struggled to write about this year’s Grand Wine Experience (for personal reasons), but I wanted to start off the article writing one true sentence that captures what I felt about the event:

It was like a massive reunion… A reunion of wine-minded individuals who haven’t really hung out in three years over a multitude of great drinks. Grand Wine was put on hold because of the pandemic (obviously). I was told by Ronnie Joseph himself that it would have been half-baked if they pushed through last year, what with the restrictions imposed at the time… and I agreed.

To make up for the lost time, they pulled out all the stops… It was so massive that I took 2 laps around the monster Marriott Grand Ballroom to figure out a plan of attack. After running into several industry friends, I got inspired to use a strategy to coherently sample the goodies from the 1,000 wines, spirits, and sake (the spirit is willing but the liver is weak, people!): Ask for friends’ recommendations.