My wife and I miss going to wine tastings... we did a few dissapointing virtual events early in the pandemic. But we got an email advertisement from Justin Vineyards and decided to give it a another try.... Bought the package (3 bottles, Chardonnay, Trilateral, Reserve Cab at a slight discount relative to separate prices) and tuned in to the facebook live event.
We set aside our sense of the ridiculous and decided to go all in. Put the feed up on the big TV, got out the good glassware (and multiples for a fresh glass for each wine) and changed out of the sweatpants into real clothes.
I have to give Justin and his winemaker Scott Shirley a rave review! By far the best virtual event we've done. They were very natural on camera, never seemed to be reading a script, yet they finished exactly on time! Of course it helps that I love his wine (which I already knew). My wife liked Trilateral best, while I loved the Cab.
One story I did not know came out of one of the on-line questions. A viewer asked where the Isoceles name came from. Justin told us that it was what he could get a trademark on! He knew he wanted to suggest a three-way blend, so he started with triangle, trio, triple, ... and all were taken. Somehow a memory from 8th grade geometry bubbled up and he tried isoceles, which worked.
Sure, if you do a lot of tastings, you hear the same stuff a lot. And yes, there was some of that. But they and their video editor (for interspersed clips) did a great job of balancing the basics with some discussion of the way the harvest went and the resulting choices they made.
Afterwards we watched the canned series "crush it with justin" which are a series of snappy 2 or 3 minute videos. Again, mostly the same old info, but so well filmed and fun to watch. (They are linked on the vineyard website, or just google.) I recommend them -- its a small time investment.