Joseph Bembry 
Advanced Sommelier
Posts: 9437
 | | 08-06-2005 06:22 PM |
| VINOCELLAR.COM 3RD ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
We have a location, date and time picked for the 3rd Anniversary Vinocellar Celebration. After much discussion, we have decided to stay close to the home office and dinner will be at Green Gables Inn Beach Haven, NJ on Saturday October 8th at 6:30pm.
After much discussion, we have chosen this restaurant and location. Here is why…
-We can take over the whole restaurant in October.
-Green Gables Inn holds a 27 rating for food from Zagat.
-I will set up a shuttle bus to take people from NYC to Long Beach Island.
-The cost is easy for everyone to take. $95 tax and tip included.
-NO CORKAGE! We bring as many bottles as we want.
-People can come down early or stay a day later and enjoy the beach. In mid October, it is beautiful on Long Beach Island.
-For those that wish to gamble, Atlantic City is just 45 minutes away.
Please make your intentions known for attendance on this thread. We have a cap of 52 people, so please try to confirm as soon as possible. Once we get a firm number of attendees, we will tackle the task of wine selection. In the next few days, I will post information about lodging and shuttles to New York City and back. It is possible (and much closer) to fly into Atlantic City Airport if you are coming in from out of town.
We hope that as many of you as possible will join Brad and the moderators for this event. You can pay for your spot at the dinner via Paypal.com using the click-thru on the homepage. If doing that, please make a payment of $98 per person attending. Otherwise, you can send a check for $95 per person attending to:
Brad Molzen
12 Lincoln Parkway
Bayonne, NJ 07002
jb | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts: 349
| | 08-07-2005 12:14 AM |
| I am in for 1.
vt | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts: 307
| | 08-07-2005 01:18 AM |
| i'd like an idea of the wine situation before i commit. that meaning will we all be providing from our cellars or will some people have to pay? just my $.02 but i think we should be able to find a way for everyone to supply wine. any info regarding this? | | | |
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ChangeMe
Master of Wine
Posts: 11169
| | 08-07-2005 02:48 AM |
| Are there hotels/motels nearby? I expect that my wife and I will attend, but can't commit yet for a little while. | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts: 307
| | 08-07-2005 08:07 PM |
| Quote:
Board-O, I will post some hotel information next week. There is plenty of lodging in Beach Haven.
Anthony, I will do my best to cull from members cellars. I can't guarantee that we will not have to compensate some people, but it will absolutely be a last resort. Last year in San Fran, people like ojeffso, Jones, davidn, Bressler and others all graciously gave more than their fare share and didn't want any compensation. I am very thankful to them for their generosity. Hopefully, wine selection will go smoothly as possible.
Right now, I just want to gauge interest and give the restaurant a firm number by Sept 1st with payment.
It should be lots of fun. I hope you all will attend.
jb
that sounds good and i am very willing to supply wine from my cellar without regards to compensation. i'm just wondering if we will need to purchase wine. imo with the collective cellars we have that shouldn't be needed. | | | |
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Bradley Molzen
VinoCellar.com Admin
Bayonne, NJ
Wine Connoisseur
Posts: 5080
| | 08-08-2005 06:48 AM |
| Quote:
i'd like an idea of the wine situation before i commit. that meaning will we all be providing from our cellars or will some people have to pay? just my $.02 but i think we should be able to find a way for everyone to supply wine. any info regarding this?
anthony, you are welcome to make some suggestions...
I will say however, this will be a very well organized dinner and not a free for all. I'm certain JB will do a fantastic job picking out wines from people's cellars and working with the chef to match the courses with them. Green Gables has done a fantastic job with this in the past and their chef always looks forward to this type of event.
So while this will not be a free for all where people just show up and start popping bottles for the main dinner..... there will be an "after dinner" party, where everyone can share to their hearts desire. I'll be sure to bring another '70 vintage port! :-)
So again, if you know a way to get 5 bottles each of 9 or more fantastic wines without anyone having to monetarily compensate those who are able to provide more than one for the cause, please post your suggestion and we will give it due consideration.
Please also remember, we are doing this to have some fun! JB works for a living.... so while we are trying to make this a most memorable evening, I already know we can't please everyone 100% so hopefully you'll have a little understanding and compassion for what we are trying to do here. Have a great dinner, with great wines, and most of all, with great people.
I can't wait to see everyone come October! | | | If you drink wine, you get smarter.... | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts: 307
| | 08-08-2005 01:17 PM |
| brad,
i fully understand what you are saying but what i am saying is last year we had a very good dinner in october where the wines were planned and nobody had to pony up. so i would just think it would be great if everyone could dig deep in their cellars to provide. i always thought the main point of getting together was to share wines with each other. i do realize that some people will want to come who might not have the right stuff in their cellars, but everything should be done to make it possible. | | | |
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ChangeMe
Grape Sorter
Posts: 307
| | 08-08-2005 01:30 PM |
| ...and btw i know there is no way it would be a free for all. but i would think that most of us at this point in time have some seriously good wines in our cellars. | | | |
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wineismylife
Arlington, TX
Master of Wine
Posts: 12540
| | 08-08-2005 02:05 PM |
| Quote:
5 bottles each of 9 or more fantastic wines
That's the key here. I know very few that can do this. I doubt we could do this as a group even as a coordinated event unless we pick obvious choices such as Bressler, Kosta-Brown, etc...where we know a lot of us have these types of wines in the cellar. 5 x 9 of aged, awesome wines? Ain't happening.
Now, having said that...
The premise is everybody should be drinking the same wines. That's the reason behind the 5 x 9. However, if you change to format to something like I've done with large events here in Dallas you can do it with all wines supplied by each person's cellar. You have to assign people to a table based on one of the five flights they'll be supplying. Stated otherwise, each table is flighted on its' own. You drink the wines at your table. That's the only way I know that you can have an event this size with all wines supplied by the members without somebody being forced to pony up to make it happen.
FWIW. | | | Joe-----Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone. | |
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ChangeMe
Master of Wine
Posts: 11169
| | 08-08-2005 02:07 PM |
| For the June, 2002 NYC dinner, we arranged for people to trade with others to get the necessary number of bottles of a given wine. | | | |
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wineismylife
Arlington, TX
Master of Wine
Posts: 12540
| | 08-08-2005 02:13 PM |
| Board-O, how many people attended that event? | | | Joe-----Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone. | |
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ChangeMe
Master of Wine
Posts: 11169
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JimmyV
Central Connecticut
Wine Connoisseur
Posts: 5227
| | 08-08-2005 03:21 PM |
| Damn. I was counting on this being later in the month, so I booked my family vacation for that week. Sorry, but I'm out.  | | | Beta testing a new signature. | |
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wineismylife
Arlington, TX
Master of Wine
Posts: 12540
| | 08-08-2005 03:24 PM |
| PURPLE is out. She's knee deep in tax forms between now and the final Oct. 15th filing deadline.
Go ahead and put me down for 1 for the moment. I'll be flying solo. | | | Joe-----Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone. | |
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Joseph Bembry
Advanced Sommelier
Posts: 9437
| | 08-08-2005 03:28 PM |
| Board-O, I will post some hotel information next week. There is plenty of lodging in Beach Haven.
Anthony, I will do my best to cull from members cellars. I can't guarantee that we will not have to compensate some people, but it will absolutely be a last resort. Last year in San Fran, people like ojeffso, Jones, davidn, Bressler, skwid, GATC and others all graciously gave more than their fare share and didn't want any compensation. I am very thankful to them for their generosity. Hopefully, wine selection will go smoothly as possible.
Right now, I just want to gauge interest and give the restaurant a firm number by Sept 1st with payment.
It should be lots of fun. I hope you all will attend.
jb | | | |
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Bradley Molzen
VinoCellar.com Admin
Bayonne, NJ
Wine Connoisseur
Posts: 5080
| | 08-08-2005 03:31 PM |
| wiml, that's a good suggestion... still sounds like a daunting task. Did you have issues with who sat with who? Did you just assign people or let them pick? People coming over to a table when they saw a wine they liked and "stealing" someone else's pour at that table? Or was their more than plenty at each table for that sort of thing? (an extra bottle perhaps?)
Love to hear more details or any other suggestions.
The other issue is.... if we have different flights for different tables, there is no way the chef will be able to match up the foods (a task he's VERY good at). So how to deal with that then?
I'm still uncertain as how to avoid a few people paying extra. Instead of paying, would a wine swap as Board-O is suggesting be the way to go? That leads to its own issues unless you have very easy going people who don't mind potentially getting shafted a little bit.
If the wine comes out to say an AVERAGE $50/person.... and one person happens to have 5 '82 Bordeauxs he/she's willing to share... Should that person get only $200 worth of wine in return when those bottles are worth much more? Or tally up what the bottles are really worth and have like 10 people give him their $50 bottle? Does that person get to choose what bottle he gets? He could end up with stuff he doesn't want otherwise... but with cash he could go out and get whatever at his/her pleasure.
I don't know... so many ifs ands or buts... | | | If you drink wine, you get smarter.... | |
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wineismylife
Arlington, TX
Master of Wine
Posts: 12540
| | 08-08-2005 04:23 PM |
| Quote:
wiml, that's a good suggestion... still sounds like a daunting task. Did you have issues with who sat with who? Did you just assign people or let them pick? People coming over to a table when they saw a wine they liked and "stealing" someone else's pour at that table? Or was their more than plenty at each table for that sort of thing? (an extra bottle perhaps?)
Love to hear more details or any other suggestions.
The other issue is.... if we have different flights for different tables, there is no way the chef will be able to match up the foods (a task he's VERY good at). So how to deal with that then?
Brad, it is a piece of cake. The best example I can give is our DAWGS February Dinner at Lavendou. The key is to start with a plan or concept. We contacted the chef and said we'd have 4 tables of 8 people each and at those tables we'll be having 5 flights of whites: 1 Champagne, 1 White Burgundy, 1 Provencial Red, 1 Bordeaux or Red Burgundy and 1 Sweet White. The chef took that and planned the menu while we worked out the wines. At that point I emailed everybody and said what do you have to fit these flights? It became quickly apparent who would sit where (i.e. only 4 wanted to bring sweets, 4 wanted to bring Champagne, 3 offered whites, etc...). We also had 20% say they could fill in anything we needed, just let them know. We had it 80+% after the first wave. I simply went back to a few fliexible people and filled the gaps from there. No muss, no fuss.
Ask anybody that attended...it worked well.
FWIW.
BTW, some people shared bottles between tables. That was a lot of fun. | | | Joe-----Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone. | |
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wineismylife
Arlington, TX
Master of Wine
Posts: 12540
| | 08-08-2005 04:24 PM |
| | | | Joe-----Wine is like potato chips around me...if it's open, it's gone. | |
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Joseph Bembry
Advanced Sommelier
Posts: 9437
| | 08-08-2005 06:53 PM |
| So far...
Brad - 1
jb - 2
ojeffso - 2
vinotyro - 1
wiml - 1
Short - 2
jb | | | |
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Blair Ridley
Wine Steward
Posts: 7719
| | 08-08-2005 09:40 PM |
| I'm in for one --- maybe two if we get overnight babysitting duties organized. | | | |
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