Symposium for Professional Wine Writers Results

Regular readers of my blog know that I applied for one of sixteen fellowship opportunities being offered by Napa wineries to attend the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley next month. I received the following letter this evening from Jim Gordon, editor of Wines & Vines and director of the Symposium:

Hi,

The fellowship winners for the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley have been decided. I am sorry to report that your entry was not given an award. There is certainly no shame in it, however, because we had a very strong field of 53 applicants and only 16 fellowships to award.

I do encourage you to strongly consider registering for the symposium this year, with or without a fellowship. The 2010 speakers are a powerful group of writers, editors, coaches and informed experts, and they come to the conference with a true mentoring spirit, ready to share and learn during the forum-like program. Please read more about the program here, headlined by best-selling travel author Frances Mayes.

I strongly believe in the value of this symposium for the attendees. I know it’s a tough time for many of us wine writers, but remember that the symposium is an investment in yourself (and tax deductible for most people). You will make connections that can last for the rest of your career, with other writers, with the coaches, with editors and wine experts who speak, that will pay off in terms of friendships, referrals and, in many cases, assignments or jobs.

The Symposium for Professional Wine Writers pays for itself with just two or three freelance articles that it might generate for you, or with a promotion in your current job because of your enhanced content ideas, with a book contract (which has happened more than once), with a strategy for reshaping your career after company down-sizing and so on.

For your $475 fee plus lodging, you get four days of thought-provoking seminars, tastings of Napa Valley wines, stimulating writing exercises, one-on-one coaching, and all your meals but one — including two great dinners from Meadowood’s Michelin 2-star kitchen.

Plus, an extra benefit this year has been offered by the Culinary Institute of America Greystone for paid registrants. The CIA is extending free admission to a CIA wine course of your choosing. Details to be posted on www.winewriterssymposium.org next week.

I understand that it’s disappointing not to have won a fellowship, but I do hope that you will still join us for the Feb. 16-19, 2010 Symposium. Go to our website here to register .

I congratulate you for seizing the opportunity to enter the fellowship competition and encourage you to do so again in the future. Please mark your calendar to send in your 2011 application by Dec. 1, 2010.

I also encourage anyone with questions about the symposium to call or email me. I will be happy to provide any further information or other help.

Sincerely,

Jim

Jim Gordon

Editor, Wines & Vines

Director, Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley

http://www.winewriterssymposium.org

I responded with the following note expressing my gratitude for the opportunity:

Dear Jim,

Thank you for taking the time to craft your letter about not being able to award a fellowship opportunity to me.

I would love to be able to take your advice and register for the Symposium without a fellowship, but that is just not feasably possible.

Perhaps next year, my work will have improved and the judges will find it more deserving, or perhaps I can write some pieces with judges in mind for next year. Hopefully, next year, I will be employed, not between jobs, and able to shoulder the costs associated with attending the Symposium, fellowship award or not.

Thank you for the opportunity to compete, I really do appreciate it. I look forward to reading about the Symposium.

John Cesano

https://johnonwine.wordpress.com

Seriously, I found out about the opportunity the last day that I could apply. With another year of writing, I will be able to submit superior pieces of wine writing for judgement. I thought I had a decent shot, but I was competing with professional wine writers and editors of major print publications like Wines & Vines and Wine Enthusiast , the judges are from the same schools of writing, and my submitted pieces just did not conform to what was expected. I have almost an entire year to generate some better pieces.

I wish each of the fellowship awardees, and Symposium attendees, a rewarding and enriching experience.

 

Gordon Ramsey audition, waiting on the Symposium, Petite Sirah love, packages in the mail, tri tip and pork belly

CBS has CSI; NBC has Law and Order. Both have spun off myriad incarnations.

FOX has Gordon Ramsey. Hells, Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Cookalong, and coming later this year Masterchef.

Masterchef is another BBC import, and turns amateur but passionate cooks into cheftestants, competing against each other, until only one is left.

I am going to be attending a casting call in San Francisco later this month, bringing the elements to plate a prepared dish with five minutes preparation – a different thermos for each part of the dish, presentation plate, spoon, tongs, cutting board, knife, steel, towels, napkin.

I’m bringing my involtini on polenta with homemade Italian red sauce, and a bottle of red wine. I think wine is part of a meal, and ingredient of the dish. So I’ll also be bringing wine, corkscrew, and wineglass as well as all of the food pack. I think I may look for a cooler with wheels and handle.

I’m hoping my brother auditions in either New Orleans or Los Angeles, we could be the Masterchef version of Top Chef’s Voltaggio brothers.

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I applied for a fellowship award to attend this year’s Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley, February 16-19, 2010.

On the Symposium  website’s page for Fellowship Opportunities, it says, “awardees will be notified by telephone and or e-mail by January 8, 2010, and their names will be posted on the Fellowship page at the Symposium website…those who are not awardees will be notified by e-mail.”

Last night, looking at the site’s page for registration, I found the statement, “Fellowship recipients will be notified by January 15, 2010.”

I thought I would know whether the writing samples I provided scored well enough with five judges to earn a Fellowship award by tomorrow, and I was already antsy, anxious, at waiting. Now I think I may have to wait another week before finding out my fate.

_____

I did win two tickets to a terrific food and wine tasting Friday evening, February 19, 2010 (and yes, I can attend the Symposium and tasting on February 19, 2010), Dark & Delicious 2010 in Alameda, CA. Dark & Delicious pairs Petite Sirah from great producers with foods prepared by some of the top chefs in the Bay Area.

I am hugely excited to taste great wines and foods, I love Petite Sirah, so this is right up my alley. I am also going to get to meet some other wine bloggers, including Eric Hwang. Eric handles social media marketing for Windsor Vineyards, I used to handle tradeshow marketing for Windsor Vineyards.

I think there might be a few tickets left, here’s the link to info: http://psiloveyou.org/dd10/

Thank you Jo Diaz for running a ticket contest.

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The mailman has been busy. I received the winter issue of Washington Tasting Room, an attractive, colorful new wine magazine, featuring beautiful photography and solid written content. Recipes, feature articles on selected wineries, a tasting room calendar of special events, and wine columns make this a worthy stand out magazine. I love that the writing puts me right in some of Washington’s tasting rooms, tasting wines; my wine knowledge is limited to California wines, mostly north coast wines, so any magazine that can educate me while entertaining is a must read.

I loved reading about Yakima’s downtown restaurants waiving corkage fees for folks who bring a wine bought that day from a neighboring downtown Yakima tasting room. The news piece quotes a restaurant owner “We’ll wash two glasses any day to sell more dinners…the program is working. The wineries love it and they’re sending customers our way.”

Thanks to John Vitale for sending me this complimentary copy.

From the Wine Appreciation Guild, I received Dr. Richard Baxter’s “Age Gets Better With Wine.” You’ll read my review when I read it – I’m in the middle of a novel so embarrassingly trashy I won’t share the title. I’ve skimmed Age Gets Better With Wine, and I look forward to getting into it soon; with 20 pages of references listed, it appears to be a solid work, and yet my skim suggested a user friendliness. More later.

Also from the Wine Appreciation Guild, I received a new wine preservation system. I am half way through my evaluation of the product and will post a review over the weekend.

Thanks to the Wine Appreciation Guild.

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Completely not related to wine or food, the mailman also delivered a package from a good friend Mike Jasper. The outside of the package was torn, trampled, dirty, cut, a letter of apology from the post office was included. The contents appear perfect however. Jasper sent me a boxed set of 4 discs covering the complete season one of A&E’s Rollergirls. I think Jasper actually knows some of the girls, and when visiting him a while back, we watched an episode and I was stunned by the “there is room on television for anything” aspect of the show’s existence. I am delighted to receive this fine gift, although it will likely wait some time before I view it.

Jasper also sent the October 2009 issue of Playboy so I could read the feature on the 1970s Oakland Raiders.

While I might read this issue of Playboy for the articles, I’m pretty sure my 12 year old son wouldn’t even glance at the Raider article, so I have to put this away.

Thanks Jasper.

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I was just going to put a pair of tri tips on the grill, when I got a call from my local grocery…my order of pork belly is available for me to pick up. Hurray, this is going to be a great week of eating in the Cesano house.

I’m thinking of trying Top Chef cheftestant Kevin Gillespie’s pork belly recipe.

As always, I’ll let you know how it goes.