All Your Grapes (On a Plane) Are Belong To Us!

UPDATE: I should have stated from the beginning, as Scoble always does, that this was a junket, which my company organized to draw some blogosphere attention to our clients. Yes, we got stuff (specifically good wine, good food and flights on private jets) for free with the expectation that we would blog about it and link in. However, as Christophe Hedges said to me, “I don’t mind if you write bad stuff about us. I just want to read it either way.” It’s up to you, my readers, to make up your mind whether you believe me or not about how great this event was.

Wow! What a 24 hour period. We finished the conference yesterday evening. It was an amazing three days with a mega letdown afterwards.

The Grapes on a Plane event was a smashing success. All the bloggers had an awesome time and we all bonded. I have a bunch of amazing photos that are forthcoming over my flickr photostream.

We visited a number of wineries. First we did some tasting at Bookwalter (try the 2004 Columbia Valley Chardonnay-Viognier) and Chandler Reach (the ‘02 Cab-Franc is awesome) before traveling to Hedges for dinner.

The dinner was really cool. There was an organic butter lettuce salad with Walla Walla onion and paired with a Three Vineyards. The main course was a traditional Boeuf Bourguignon, which was obviously well-prepared but not really my thing. I do have to get the recipe from Christophe Hedges because I think Andy would really enjoy it. They paired that with their Two Vineyards Reserve.

After the beef, there was a bread and cheese course, which is my favorite thing to eat. The bread crust reminded me a bit of matzoh, which is a good thing. They paired the course with a private reserve Single Vineyard Syrah, which requires a private list membership to even purchase. If I had the money, I would seriously consider purchasing a membership because I’ve never had anything quite as special as that Syrah.

Finally, they paired dark chocolate truffles with their Red Mountain Fortified port. Everyone had a great time. I think a small food fight even broke out at one point, there are photos in the photostream

The jets provided by Greenpoint Technologies were really a trip. I’ve never flown on a private jet before, and I felt very fancy. My favorite thing by far were the bathrooms. On commercial jets, the toilets make really scary noises when you flush them. I’m always afraid that it’s going to de-pressurize the cabin and vent everyone onboard into the stratosphere. On our jet, the toilet flushed like a normal toilet, except the water was blue. I wasn’t freaked out at all! I may never fly commercial again.

UPDATE: So, what do you think? Am I telling the truth about the junket? Did I really have a good time or is Jason Calacanis right to question my authenticity as a blogger? If you need to check out the photographic proof one more time, you might want to do that.