Wacky Wine Regulation Quiz

My colleague Michelle Minton and I presented on  alcohol regulation at the Society of Wine Educators Conference in Providence Rhode Island is past summer. We managed to keep participants awake with a lively presentation that quizzed the audience on the wacky world of alcohol regulation in America.

Quiz yourself here.

As we presented, participants had the pleasure of sampling more than a dozen wines and one beer from various states across the nation. I provided three featured wines and 10 others from wineries around America–thanks to a donation by Wine America. My colleague provided one beer. You can see the complete list here and my PowerPoint here.

I decided to feature a Colorado wine because I was amazed by one while dining at the Denver airport. With some online research, I discovered Gary Vaynerchuk‘s review of Guy Drew Vineyards Metlate, 2007. Fortunately, I was able to order this one via the mail. It was amazingly good as were the other two featured wines we sampled: Callaghan Padres, 2008 from Arizona (also a Vaynerchuk favorite), and Jefferson Vineyards Chardonnay from Virginia (my discovery during the 2011 Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia).  The other ten were also very tasty and well received by the group. The presentation proved that many states are making exciting wines–despite many wacky state alcohol laws!