–The annual World of Pinot Noir (WOPN) event has announced that March 2021 will be “WOPN Wine Month.” Normally held on the first weekend of March at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in Santa Barbara, the 2021 event will be entirely virtual. This year, the largest annual gathering of Pinot Noir producers and fans is not just going virtual, it’s going bigger and longer.
During WOPN Wine Month, every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will feature a series of virtual tasting seminars, events, auctions, and winemaker happy hours via Zoom, Instagram Live and Facebook Live.
“Each year, our 3,000-plus attendees often say they’d love even more content and more opportunities for intimate experiences with winemakers,” says Laura Booras, president of the World of Pinot Noir Board of Directors. “This year, we actually have an opportunity to grow those opportunities.”
The World of Pinot Noir Announces WOPN Wine Month
Throughout the entire month of March, WOPN will be hosting a series of seminars, virtual winemaker tastings, its popular silent auction, and the opportunity to sip exclusive wines from the world s most-acclaimed wineries. February 18, 2021
February 17, 2021 (Santa Barbara, Calif.) – The annual World of Pinot Noir (WOPN) is pleased to announce it will be taking over the month of March in a global celebration of the planet’s greatest wine grape. March 2021 is officially WOPN Wine Month.
Normally held on the first weekend of March at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in sunny Santa Barbara, the 2021 event will be entirely virtual. While we all wish we could gather at the seaside resort, this year’s challenges have presented an exciting positive: the opportunity to expand WOPN programming beyond the normal three-day get-together.
WineInk
Unless you went to Montepulciano Middle School or the Grange Prep School, chances are that you don’t have a wine named after the school you attended.
Ah, but I do. As fate would have it, this wine scribe attended Palisades High School in Southern California, affectionately known as Pali. And yes, there is actually an acclaimed pinot noir producer who markets their wines under the moniker of the Pali Wine Company. And, as this is the 700th WineInk column I have penned, please excuse a little personal indulgence.
In my youth, as a precocious high school student, I developed a fondness for a cheap Portuguese wine called Mateus Rosé. Rod Stewart, the gravelly voiced “vocalist-extraordinaire,” was a prodigious consumer of said wine and even credited it on “Every Picture Tells a Story” as a “vocal abrasive.” That was all I needed to know. Good enough for Rod, good enough for me.