The greatest pleasure afforded by our work is making the wines themselves. That is why these pages document day after day on the crush pad. But the second greatest pleasure is intense on its own and supremely rewarding: presenting the wines, watching faces, hearing reactions. Mostly I present to wine buyers, sommeliers, other nabobs of great distinction. But sometimes we organize tastings and get to talk to, and drink with, normal people. Sometimes even the nabobs are quite normal. Some of the most fun this year has been watching people approach the 07 prince with the expectation of disgust, and then seeing their faces light up, smiles erupt, orders placed—clearly against all rational expectation on the part of the buyer. And some of the most rewarding experiences, because least expected, have been outside of the centers of sophistication (and wine-geekdom)—for instance, the owner of a steak and red wine emporium somewhere outside of Clearwater, Florida who tasted all of my wines then began his order with a request for “A case of that fucked-up Sauvignon Blanc!”

Here are some of the events where we have been able to present the wines to many people at once:

Cory Lane, who holds a hard to define sway over Momofuku Ssam Bar, and Mark Snyder, who runs the Red Hook winery and directs Scholium sales in NY and NJ, hosted a tasting of Scholium and Hudson Vineyard wines that was so full of raucous energy that it felt like waves breaking against a cliff. But the guests were so focused in the midst of their enthusiasm that our wines were not just gulped but received, judged, and remembered. We poured about 12 different Scholium wines, all of which paired perfectly with pork.

Soon after this, I went to New Orleans and worked with Monica Bourgeois and Neil Gernon. They are unsurpassed in their pursuit of revelry and more friends for Scholium. They set up a charming small dinner at Maximo's on Decatur, where the manager uses Babylon to placate difficult customers, and where the chef paired the wines superbly with a rich and spicy cuisine.

And then a one-night trip to NY to attend the Red Hook Winery harvest party—a deluxe bbq at the winery itself, thrown to regale the many people who pulled the physical winery together in two months, and some of the dedicated harvest workers. We drank Scholium and Foley and prizes from Mark's portfolio; ate Glenn's meat and salmon from Christopher's boat.

The next day, south to Florida. Vincent Henderson has more fans of Scholium than I have and does not know how to stop. He organized a dinner at Park Square Cellar, a lovely wine shop south of Tampa that serves a small and very loyal clientele—and they do it without selling a single obvious or uninteresting wine. I got participate in a dinner prepared by the owner himself, with about a dozen of their most enthusiastic customers: intimate, warm, utterly authentic.
Vincent also hosted a party so that we could hang out a little with some of the people that he has inflamed with his enthusiasm. We set it for late at night so that restaurant people could come, served very little food, and a lot of champagne and some very interesting red wines. Especially worth mentioning was a Miani merlot given to us by Andrea Bozzolo from Divino's in Sarasota. There is passion in this part of Florida that one might not imagine from afar.

In May, I was honored by a winemaker dinner at a very interesting restaurant hidden in a spacious and almost secret subterranean venue at the California Academy of Sciences., the Moss Room. I had dined there before to great delight, so when the wine director, Clay, asked if we would participate in an all-Scholium dinner. I was even more eager when I met the chef, Justin Simoneaux, from Louisiana, sporting a black fleur-de-lys headband. He wanted to do an all-seafood dinner, even with the red wines; I was immediately enthusiastic. The dinner ended up being very fun, very low key, with superb food.

Late in June, Per Se in New York did a Scholium dinner as part of their American Table series. Chefs Benno and Keller conceived excellent pairings for what I would never consider Per Se-like wines. The room was filled with a delightful friendly tribe of guests who asked very good questions and did not mind when I was frank with them and used informal language. The tone was set by Roxane Shafaee-Moghadam, the head sommelier, who, in opening the dinner, uttered some of the most beautiful and poetic words I have heard about wine.