by Dave Williams

I hope this finds you healthy and surviving the Covid-19 pandemic. Opening of the liquor stores, I suspect, provides some relief; but I am sure we all hope for more normalcy to return. As indicated in previous online communications, we have been Zoom meeting and discussing when and how we can safely resume tastings. After the feedback we received from our survey, we have decided to hold off the August Zinfandel tasting. It does appears that many of you are anxious and cautiously ready to attend a PWS event. To that point, we will host our next event at Black Ankle Vineyards in Maryland in a spacious outdoor setting. Black Ankle is experienced in hosting events with precautions in place. Additional details are provided throughout this newsletter. Our survey also indicated that many are reluctant to attend PWS events until there is a vaccine, or until the virus is significantly reduced and manageable. We respect your decision not to attend. We do hope you will stay with PWS, and join in-person events at some time when you feel comfortable. In the meantime – please join our virtual activities Sunday afternoons.

We are also quite interested to hear what measures you took, or experiences you had, in surviving the challenges of the pandemic such as Cathy Boyd’s shared anecdote “Drinking #1”. Speaking for myself, I have purchased more wine on line than I typically do, which has put me on a first name basis with the UPS and Fed Ex driver. Some of these purchases were prompted by several of the virtual wine tastings I participated in over the last few months. Socializing at home has been limited to small circle of friends who abide by the appropriate quarantine and physical distancing precautions. Please share your own experiences – be they somber, or humorous. You can respond to Editor@PAwinesociety.com with personal experiences, recommendations, etc. We look forward to your sharing!

PWS Members and wine enthusiasts

First, I hope this message finds you safe and healthy. These are certainly unusual times we are experiencing. Returning to normal is everyone’s desire. However, I suspect normal will be somewhat different, at least for some time.

As you can imagine our tasting schedule has been thrown into disarray because of Corona virus. When a clear path forward becomes evident we will resume our tastings while taking all the appropriate precautions for as long as necessary. Unfortunately, that clarity is lacking at the moment. It is our HOPE to be able to host the planned August Zinfandel tasting and will advise on details if this is, in fact, possible. In addition to our usual events we are exploring on line “virtual” events comprising an assortment of fun and educational topics.

PWS is also considering extending memberships in concert with our time of inactivity. More information on this will be available once we know when we can resume tastings. We hope many of you that have not renewed your membership will remain with us going forward.

In the meantime, I ask you to share with us your survival techniques during the Corona virus quarantine from a wine perspective. This should be a brief, practical, helpful, creative or entertaining statement of how you are coping. Photos are encouraged. Plans are to post them on our social media sites for others to enjoy. Forward your compositions and photos to Kimberly Hawkins at hawkinspawinesociety@gmail.com

Stay healthy and drink well,

Dave Williams

President’s Message to PWS Members and Guests

Corona virus is an invisible threat to our health and normal life. What we do not know about it is what makes it so dangerous. The, so called, “abundant precautions” will hopefully flatten the curve and return quick and significant dividends enabling us to return to normalcy. However, until then we will suspend all tastings by the PA Wine Society. Our intention is to reschedule most if not all events going forward. Details and dates will be communicated when known. PWS will be a responsible community citizen placing your health as priority #1.

For those who have signed up for our tastings, we will hold your reservation payment until we determine if/when the event can be rescheduled. When a reschedule date is announced, you may determine if you are able to attend. If you cannot attend, a refund will be provided, or you may apply the fee as a credit toward a future tasting. A refund check will be mailed to you, if desired. If you wish a refund, please contact the treasurers via the Contact Us page of the PWS website http://www.pawinesociety.com/contact-us/.

In the meantime, we urge you to be a considerate citizen, practicing safe and appropriate measures, to avoid contributing to spread of the virus. We look forward to seeing you at future tastings when things return to normal. Until then, I pray you all have sufficient wine to last until the PLCB reopens its stores.

Dave Williams
PWS President

by Dave Williams

The life blood of every volunteer organization is first volunteers, and second, new members. PWS recruitment success has primarily been by direct one on one contact with individuals. However, I have to commend Marty Cook persuading more than a dozen non-members to attend his recent “Godforsaken Grapes” tasting. While I want to encourage Marty to keep up the good work, we can all bring new faces to our events. Needless to say, recruitment of new members has been slower than we would like to see.

When I look across our membership at tastings, I see a sea of senior blonde hair; gray for those of us who don’t hold on to a bit of vanity. Of course this applies more to the men than ladies. This brings me to an event, that is in the planning stages, to appeal to millennials or younger audience. This will be a family-friendly extra event planned for June 13 at Nissley Vineyards. The purpose is to enable younger couples and singles (children included) to attend a budget-conscious event to experience and explore wine and its contribution to life. Details will follow, but what I am asking is that if you have offspring, younger acquaintances, friends and co-workers that have even a slight interest in wine, please help encourage them to attend.

Wine is a wonderful, intimate product connected to a place and people. It can enhance a meal, a moment, a romantic encounter regardless of age. It is not a product that should be restricted to the senior blonde audience.

by Dave Williams
A considerable amount of work goes into PA Wine Excellence, for which I would like to thank Averill Shepps and the PWS team that tackles any problem that arises the day of the event. To give you an idea as to scale, we poured 1,378 glasses of wine on Sunday, Jan. 26. No small feat. However, for me the greatest reward is seeing the enthusiasm of the audience, both wine enthusiasts and wine makers. The chatter that occurred during the breaks had many exchanges between wine makers and enthusiasts. Pennsylvania wines certainly deserve more attention and recognition. PWS tries to call attention to the great wines of PA with PA Wine Excellence. Our contribution to the wineries is the press coverage we seek before and following the event. Congratulations to the Winning, Top 13 and 10 Honorable Mention wines and wineries. Attendance exceeded 100 this year. Hopefully, guest and winery participation will increase year after year.

Through my participation in PA Wine Excellence over the years I have gotten to know many of the winery owners and wine makers. These have become valued relationships for me. I particularly enjoy hearing the details and stories behind the wines as told by the wineries at our event. The wines are not merely a product but a place, a time and people captured in a bottle. I like Terry Theise’s term, “authentic” as an excellent contrast to manufactured. Drink local, you may be surprised at what you find.

by Dave Williams

Unlike the current atmosphere surrounding our upcoming national election we had no contentious issues in our recent elections. The current slate of officers have been re-elected and we added two new board members to our slate: Jim Lang and Joe Via. I look forward to working with both to bring forth some new perspectives and ideas to further PWS’s mission of wine education and entertainment. In addition, you may have noticed we added a new Social Media position to our board last year: Kimberly Hawkins is fulfilling that role. I urge you to add PWS to your social media accounts and share our posts with your friends to help us increase exposure. Thanks to Marty Cook’s prompting, a wine info section was also added to the web site. In this section we look forward to interesting and relevant tidbits of facts and knowledge on wine.

I am committed to insuring PWS is focused on serving you, our members, so let us know your thoughts, comments and suggestions; including criticisms. Serving as a PWS officer or board member is truly based on a love of wine and desire to share the experience with others. To that point I will again ask you to invite friends, business associates and family that are interested in or merely curious about wine to one of our events. Sharing the wine experience is one of each event’s unique features and value.

by Dave Williams

A bit of history: PA Wine Excellence is one of our most enjoyable and educational events. It should be attended by those who have both a negative and positive impressions of PA wines as opinions will be changed or confirmed, respectively. Today PA’s wine industry is about 50 years old, however, it all started with William Penn in 1863. While his Bordeaux cuttings did not survive they did manage to produce a cross hybrid called Alexander which became popular mid-18th century. Pierre Legaux emigrated from France to America in 1787 and started PA’s first commercial vineyard and nursery based on the Alexander grape. By mid-19th century PA was the 3rd largest producer of wine.

The locus of PA wine making moved from the southeast to the northwest with the 1864 establishment of the South Shore Winery (recently purchased and reactivated by Mazza Vineyards). The Concord grape moved Lake Erie’s focus to table grapes aided by prohibition. After prohibition the legislature created the PLCB which hindered the growth and development of PA wineries. It wasn’t until the passage of the Limited Winery Act in 1968 which allowed farm wineries to make and sell up to 50,000 gallons of wine. (Thanks to effort of Doug Moorhead who then started Presque Isle Winery with William Konnerth.) Pennsylvania’s wine industry grew from 11 wineries in 1976 to 270 or so today. Act 39 was passed in 2016 which further enabled wineries to self-distribute to licensed outlets like grocery stores and wine shops. It also authorized up to $1 million for marketing and research supporting PA wine.

by Dave Williams
Some food for thought about wine. I have just finished reading Alice Feiring’s recent book, “The Dirty Guide to Wine”. Her earlier book, “The Battle for Wine and Love -or- How I Saved the World from Parkerization”, indicates her perspective. In that, Alice railed against how many wineries attempted to make wines that pleased the big, bold flavor preference of Robert Parker rather than make wines that truly reflect their identity and traditions. She felt that in doing so, they violated their authenticity. Usually these changes required manipulations that masked or ignored the terroir and traditions that created and established the wine.

Today we see a trend towards sustainable, natural, organic and biodynamic techniques, which is somewhat of a response to the many manipulations of earlier decades. She also frets over the many chemicals and processes used in the vineyard and winery to execute the manipulations. In her recent book she looks at wine through the soil, thus the title, “The Dirty Guide to Wine”. She identifies soil types and themes that run through good-great wine and explains why she, and many others, think soil along with climate and wine making process are keys to understanding what composes great wine. She makes a strong case for following the soil to great wine but also credits the wine makers that respect the soil to produce a natural and authentic expression of terroir without chemical manipulations. Variation from year to year and location to location are essential to great wine. A good read worthy of contemplation.

by Dave Williams

I have seen a number of new faces at some of our recent tastings, some even joining PWS. In particular at the Galen Glen event many of those new to PWS thanked the team for such a wonderful and educational event. How often do you get to go behind the scenes of a winery with key personnel who actually make the wine? The stories and their passions come through to connect you to the wines we later enjoyed. This relationship of soil, people and place is what constitutes “authenticity” in wine. It is definitely not a soulless, mass-produced production line product.

From my perspective most new attendees at PWS events are pleased, if not delighted, with their experience and plan to attend future events. If that is so, then why are people curious about wine not beating a path to our door, so to speak? I suspect it is because we do not have a large public profile. Most first time guests attend our events at the invitation of a current member. This one-on-one approach has been our most effective recruiting process. Given that, I am going to ask each one of you to invite a friend or friends who have some degree of curiosity about wine to join you at an upcoming PWS event. We host a range of events from more introductory to graduate level tastings. We even host several social events like our August and September’s at The Inn at Herr Ridge. Our aim is to control prices as much as possible. However, facilities, quality foods and wines dictate costs. Pick one that appeals to your friend(s) and introduce them to fun way to learn about wine.

By Dave Williams

Last month I asked for input for future events. To that point, I want to thank those that approached me at the last tasting, offering suggestions and further input. Please continue to provide your suggestions and ideas to President@PaWineSociety.com Some even offered to meet for a brainstorming session, which I plan to make happen. There is never an end to this process. Again, I want to state our goal is to bring interesting, educational and enjoyable events to you to enhance your appreciation and pleasure for wine.

The Board recently had our annual planning meeting for 2020 and beyond, and I am pleased to say a number of interesting and new topics were presented. This does not preclude your idea from becoming a reality. While we composed a draft schedule for 2020, unforeseen changes and obstacles are bound to occur necessitating alternative events. One event that we are committed to is in January—PA Wine Excellence, where we present the great Pennsylvania wines that can play on the world stage. This is a must attend event for those both familiar and disillusioned with PA wines.

When planning we try to achieve a balance of introductory level events, with mid and senior level events. PWS recognizes that wine education for all of us started out of curiosity. We aim to provide a non-intimidating environment to encourage those with curiosity to attend. Having reviewed the events PWS has hosted over the last 30+ years, we have presented some remarkable wines and truly noteworthy speakers. It is the Board’s desire to see that continue. Again, your suggestions and input help us to do so.