Pinot Days {or, Wine in a Hangar}

A few weekends ago, Mr. Curieuse and I rounded up the crew and headed to the second annual Pinot Days in Santa Monica.

Remember those job fairs at university? Massive conference rooms with booths and everyone on their best behavior?  Well, you could say Pinot Days is sort of like that, if by "like that"you mean all the booths have free wine and you don't have to dress up or behave particularly well.

Pinot Days is held in a massive hangar at the Santa Monica airport. There were over 90 winemakers, and almost all of them were offering just one kind of vino: Pinot Noir.

This requires a certain amount of resolve - even if you like Pinot, tasting the. same. varietal. for an entire afternoon is not for the faint-hearted.

All of these people are drinking pinot.
They look emotionally prepared for 300 different bottles of the stuff.

In the middle of everything was the whiskey booth. I know. It made no sense to me, either.

And if you're wondering what it's like to taste whiskey after trying 14,637 different kinds of Pinot, stop it.  I'll tell you: it's disgusting.  Take my word on this.

Luckily, there were little tables of bread and cheese scattered about.  The bread was fantastic. It made me forget about the whiskey debacle entirely. That's the power of LPQ.

So, would I go again? Probably not. I prefer not to speed-date my wine. I'm more of an old-fashioned girl, and like getting to know a bottle in more intimate surroundings with better lighting.

But we did have a grand old time, and it's a great excuse to start tippling at two o'clock in the afternoon. If you haven't been, you should definitely see this for yourself.