Announcing: SWE’s 2021 Virtual Conference—the Agenda

[Link] We are pleased to announce the line-up for SWE's Second Annual Virtual Conference, to be held Friday, October 15 to Sunday, October 17 (2021). This event is offered free-of-charge to members of the Society of Wine Educators, but space is limited. Conference attendees are welcome to attend any or all of the individual sessions. To register, please contact Danielle LaRosa, SWE's Meetings and Events Coordinator at [email protected].

We have several days of conference programming for you consisting of live, interactive webinars created by our highest-rated and most accomplished conference presenters. Be sure and read over each of the session abstracts in advance, as many of them include suggested wines to accompany the sessions. These wines may be purchased locally and tasted along with the live webinars. Keep in mind, however, that these webinars will be fun and meaningful whether you choose to taste-along or not.

Click here download a list of recomended wines and other taste-along suggestions.

(FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15: 5:00 pm-6:00 pm CST) Opening Session/SWE General Meeting with Shields T. Hood and Jane Nickles. Join Shields T. Hood (SWE's General Manager) and Jane Nickles (SWE's Director of Education and Certification) for an introduction to our Virtual Conference as well as an update on SWE's products, programs, and initiatives. Bring your questions, and a glass of wine!

(FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15: 7:00 pm-8:15 pm CST) Alan Tardi, CSW: A Match Made in Heaven: The Intimate Bond Between Wine, Food and Regional Identity in Italy. Most wine aficionados and most foodies agree that wine and food make good companions, and wine-food paring has become an engaging topic on many different levels. But what makes a good pairing and why? One of the best places to look for compelling examples is in Old World countries where wines and food preparations were developed simultaneously, in the same area, and by the same people. And, with its long viticultural history, vast lineup of native grape varieties, rich culinary traditions, and huge diversity of climate and regional identity, there is no better place to explore this connection than the country known (and loved by many) as Italy. In this unusual and tempting virtual session, we will discuss select traditional dishes and wines of a handful of Italian regions to assess what makes them representative expressions of their place of origin, what makes them go particularly well with one another and, perhaps most importantly, what are the indelible ties that bind both food and wine to the place they come from and the people that produce them.

(SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16: 10:00 am-11:15 am CST) Annie Edgerton, DipWSET, CSW: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work- Red Blends Come to Play. One of the most popular categories in recent years, the red blend is starting to lose its grip on the market. Wildly successful offerings like Apothic Red, The Prisoner, and 19 Crimes are passed over for varietal wines, as consumers shift away from sweeter seeming (or just plain sweeter) reds to drier and more premium styles. But the art of the red blend has been around since the dawn of wine, appearing in the iconic bottles of Amarone, Bordeaux, the Rhône, Portugal's field blends, Super Tuscans, even California's Meritage. This session will explore how those classic red blends gave birth to the popular supermarket blends, what the forecast is for this category, and what the future is for ALL types of red blends with consumers of every engagement level.

(SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16: 12:00 noon-1:15 pm CST) Lucia Volk, CWE, PhD: Garnacha/Grenache: The Tale of One Grape on Two Sides of the Pyrenees. Garnacha/Grenache is a grape that is valued for its ability to withstand drought and heat. It produces delicious strawberry aromas consumers love. Moreover, it is an excellent blending partner and can yield a wide range of wines; fruity rosés, age-worthy single variety reds as well as G-S-Ms, and rich, sweet vins doux naturels. In this session, we will have a close look at this versatile grape, focusing on two regions with the largest acreage Northern Spain and Southern France, and we will taste a few noteworthy examples.

(SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16: 2:00 pm-3:15 pm CST) Ed Korry, CWE: Wine: Nectar of the Gods-Its Story and Worldwide Impact. Travel with Ed Korry who will guide us across the continents from 7,000 BCE to the present to gain a better understanding of how wine was transformed from the sacred to a consumer product costing thousands of dollars a bottle or '3 buck Chuck'. Wine has acted as medicine, social lubricant, philosophical and poetic spark, symbol of social status and been an underpinning to world trade.

(SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16: 4:00 pm-5:15 pm CST) Mark Davidson, Head of Education-Wine Australia (Americas). The Evolving Landscape of Australian Wine. While the idea of Australian wine is well known in North America, the full extent of what this country is currently producing is less understood. There has been a remarkable evolution of style, brought on by a deeper knowledge of varieties and vineyards sites. Add to this the spirit of experimentation and quest for quality and you could argue that Australia is one of the most exciting wine producing countries on the planet right now. Wine Australia's Mark Davidson will lead an entertaining and informative webinar that will uncover the factors that are shaping the new face of Australian wine.

(SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17: 10:00 am-11:15 am CST) Sharron McCarthy, CSW: Vivacious Valpolicella-did you know? Valpolicella-located in the Veneto in Italy's northeastern corridor-offers a unique marriage of past and present; tradition blended with modern technology. In the "valley of many wine cellars" fiction blurs with fact when it comes to stories about her eclectic grapes and emblematic wines. Ever wonder why some of Valpolicella's grape varieties are named after a crow or even a flour mill? What are superiore and classico? Does it intrigue you that Amarone means bitter, but it is a wine made with partially dried grapes? Did you know that the original version of this wine was and still is sweet? Through what extraordinary twist of fate did Amarone arrive? What does "ripasso" mean? Join us as we sip and swirl through some of Valpolicella's most seductive reds from the historic vineyards of the Valpolicella.

(SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17: 12:00 noon-1:15 pm CST) Jane A. Nickles, CSE, CWE: How to Train Your Nose. Gooseberry or grapefruit? Marzipan or mushroom? Bay leaf or banana? If wine aromas bogle your mind, join us for this session all about how to train your nose! We will learn how flying molecules become olfactory sensations, how aroma training can enhance your wine sniffing skills, and exactly how to go about training your nose (and your brain) to recognize, identify, and talk about aromas.

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