I have been working on this project since Harvest. I am so excited finally to share it with you. I am going to give you a quick outline and provide some links to events, and then go much more into detail below.

In the late Summer of 2015, right before harvest, I was invited to visit a young and bold restaurant on the fjord-ridden west coast of Norway. I saw a culture at the restaurant, and an environment in the town, that haunted me. Something very serious, very collegial, and very spirited, was taking place here. A little less than a year later, a dear colleague from San Francisco told me that she had been invited to apply for the wine directorship of the restaurant.

I was so excited for her—and for them.

Now, about nine months from that date, she and I have planned a Nordic adventure for Scholium and one of my closest colleagues, Alex Kongsgaard. He and I and two more friends are going to make a four-city tour of Scandinavia, presenting our wines for a few days in each city, with Restaurant Lysverket, on the west coast of Norway, as the hub and anchor.

You may go directly here for tickets for the events at Lysverket:

the scope of the tour:

Both Kongsgaard and Scholium already sell wine in Northern Europe. The Kongsgaards are Norwegian by descent, and, in fact, we have all visited Norway together before as part of my cultural education at John's hands. But we have never gone to show wine. We are now going together not just to sell our wines but to teach people about what we do, to discuss our work, and present our passion.

I am beginning my portion of the tour in London, a traditional Viking destination in the 9th century. I am flying in for the RAW wine festival on March 12 and 13, and will be pouring with the assistance of my friend Magnus Leveaux, a Swede who helped introduce the Scholium Project to New York City when he was the wine director of the Blue Ribbon Bistro.

It will be a crazy busy time in London—a mini-invasion in a new era. In addition to RAW, there I will hold five evening events, including a Metaphysical Lecture on "Fucking Natural Wine." Please see the details on the London leg below.

From London, I will proceed to Stockholm on March 17, where I will unite with Alex Kongsgaard, Alexandra Athens and Allie LaForce. The four of us will spend three days and nights there, pouring wine and hosting a few late parties suffused with Champagne and California wines. I do not have a Swedish importer yet; part of the aim is to sweep the city off its feet and leave with a new partner.

From Stockholm, we will all fly to Bergen, a beautiful and historic port on the Sognefjord, on the west coast of Norway. We will be hosted by Courtney Humiston, who interned with Scholium in 2011 and, then for the next few years, tackled both viticulture and restaurant management. In 2015, she became the opening manager of Petit Crenn in San Francisco, where she also directed service and the wine program. In 2016, she left the US to bring her severe excellence to Restaurant Lysverket, in Bergen. She will be hosting two tastings and two dinners at Lysverket, and has organized a party at a nearby wine bar. Further details on Bergen below.

Next Copenhagen, where we have several friend ready to help us introduce the city to our work. We are going not to dine but to pour. We have two trade tastings planned, a fancy lunch for enthusiasts, and three late night parties.

Our last stop is Oslo. We have a trade tasting slated here, and two late night adventures, at Bar Brutus and the famous Pjoltergeist. It is in fact a reverse invasion, and we expect to be completely devastated at this point, and ready for a quiet return to our native shores.

London events: In addition to pouring at RAW, I will be hosting a tasting at the Remedy, a takeover at Sager & Wilde Paradise Row, a Metaphysical Lecture at the Sampler, and one other tasting whose venue has not yet been set. We are still juggling details of the dense London schedule; please go here to see updates on the precise London schedule and to purchase tickets where they are necessary. You may also simply email me and ask to be put on a mailing list for London updates. This will be stunning!

Bergen events: Courtney and I have an amazing series of events planned here. She and Alex and I all worked together in the historic McDowell vineyard on Glos Lane in Napa for several years, and it occurred to us that it would be perfect and amazing to hold a Glos retrospective when we were all together in Bergen. So we will. With magnums and 3 liters, to boot. This retrospective will take place at 2 pm on March 21, at Lysverket. Courtney and chef Christopher Haatuft of Lysverket will also host a small post-retrospective dinner on the same night. The next day, the 22d, we will host a comprehensive tutored tasting of Scholium and Kongsgaard for trade and private guests, and a celebratory dinner afterwards—all at Lysverket. The tasting will be free: If you can get yourself to Bergen, you can come to the tasting on me. But there are only 12 spots available. And the same for the Gala Dinner.
You can reserve your spots here:

It is not hard to reach Bergen. There are direct flights from JFK and many connecting flights from all over Europe. You should join us. GLOS. Retrospecitve. There is only one: "tastes like Glos."

Stockholm and Copenhagen events: we are still negotiating venues and timing in both cities. I think that all events will be free and will not require tickets—an RSVP at most. We might have a fancy dinner or lunch in Copenhagen, for which we would have to charge. You can go go here to keep abreast of the schedule in these cities, and also just check in with me by email.

There is a commercial importance in selling wine in these foreign markets. I will go into that in a separate email. And there is the excitement of travel, of tourism. But there is something substantial and worthwhile beyond this—and, while not specific to wine, not simply the same as tourism. The way that the world drinks wine is changing at this very moment. Grand Crus and cult Cabernets have lost sway to ox-driving organic producers of Pineau d'Aunis. This change is felt everywhere, but it emanates from Tokyo, Paris, Copenhagen. It is so important—and so educational—to visit these places and get a sense of what is going on, and how people are thinking and drinking. But it also important to bring our wines to them—our quintessentially American wines, neither natural nor Grand Cru, but the children of a different and more local movement … We are so excited for this voyage not of conquest but education.