Untangled Vine

OK, that was a ridiculously long time between posts. Where do I begin? Is anyone still reading this? I originally started this blog as a way to post my articles that were published in one of our local papers. As it turns out, said paper wasn’t so interested in wine articles anymore, maybe they’ll change their mind one day. At any rate, that was my original inspiration for posting. I then became enthralled by many of my fellow bloggers, and I read everyone’s blogs on a nearly daily basis. So, blogging was always on my mind. Then, last year, our company went through a major transformation, and I found myself devoting all of my time and creative energy towards getting this thing off the ground. Business has been growing exponentially, and my involvement in the day to day operations and planning has grown as well. So here I sit 6 months later trying to figure out why I should blog, and of course realize that this is another creative outlet for me. It’s a place to flesh out my opinions, experiences and theories. So this blog exists for my own catharsis, once in a while I get an email, or a friend or family member tell me they read it, but for me, it has to be about an outlet. That’s why I try to avoid the “Today I had a cheese sandwich” syndrome. Today marks the beginning of untangled vine 2.0, or v.2, or the next generation, or electric boogaloo, or the reckoning, whatever.

So what’s really been happening? Well, we are expecting a new addition to our family within the next 2 months. That’s really exciting for us, obviously. But this isn’t my personal journal, so except for the biggest of news, I will skip over these details, this is after all about food and wine, and the cultural battles that we fight for the sake of food and wine as culture. A little too self-important? Yeah, that’s me, and that is my advice on how to enjoy your livelihood, by assigning an Us vs. Them relationship, and treat it like you are personally trying to save the entire civilization.

On that note, I am in the middle of another cultural struggle. I have been asked to head up a Toledo Food & Wine Festival. It’s my own fault, and it was my idea about a year ago to mention this to a friend of mine that sits on the board at Citifest Toledo (that’s the Non-profit organization that puts together many of the well-attended riverfront events including Rally by the River, etc…). They wanted to use me to put together this event, but I didn’t like the amount of time until event (< st="on">Toledo a better place, with a better self image, with what could possibly be the best food and wine event in Ohio ever! The general apathy has been taxing the hell out of me, but I will persevere, and just as I sell wine everyday, I just now need to sell this event to the good people of Toledo if I have to beat them over the head with it. So as it stands, The Maumee Valley Food & Wine Festival will happen on October 6th, 2007.

Also exciting for me, bringing my career full circle. I have always been of French Wine, and lately, we have scored some great French wines for our portfolio (a friend of mine recently compared building your portfolio of producers to building a baseball card collection- this is a perfect comparison) and since we have grown and improved so much, we are now in a position for me to go after some of my favorite producers that no one else can quite do justice to. It’s a small and very good industry, and the constant change and challenge down the next road make everything in the wine industry more and more interesting every day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 08, 2007 at 3:34 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.