Wine 2.oh

posted by philip in Wine Industry

Last week was the Web 2.0 conference in New York, and Thursday night was the Wine 2.0 event in Webster Hall. It was always going to be a long week of meetings and events - New York doesn’t host that many tech or wine events, and so, when we do, we make up for lost time.

Firstly kudos to Smoke Wallin, Cornelius Geary and the rest of the Wine 2.0 crew for organizing such a great event. There were well over 1,000 attendees and a slew of winemakers, VCs, Wine 2.0 companies and a few internet celebrities walking around. I certainly saw Time Oreilly (the man who invented the term Web 2.0 i do believe), Dennis Crowley (founder of Dodgeball), Alex Iskold (founder of Adaptive Blue) and best of all, some of the folks from the much loved I Can Has Cheezburger!

Half the crowd were everyday folks, not in the industry, but with a passion for wine. And, I really was impressed with how knowledgeable and geeky they were. I saw several people studiously tapping wine tasting notes into their iPhones (we do that here at Snooth, sure, but I didnt realize that there were others out there just like us). So to the people who taxed us with tough questions and outlandish feature requests - thanks for keeping us on our toes!

That night was the official demo of the Snooth Pulse map program - it was a huge draw, and, as the guy who put it together, Chris got to walk away with a Fusebox as a token of admiration from the good folks at Crushpad.

I made it my mission of the night to meet all the other Wine 2.0 technology companies - our direct competitors. I was very excited to finally meet Eric Orange from Local Wine Events and Jason Coleman of Winelog. I also had the good fortune to meet the team from Cruvee, Roger Marmet from Wine Taste TV, the Wine Snob (link to apple’s download store) team as well as others who’ve become friends over the years.

The result of all this is that I hope there will be increased collaboration between companies within the industry. That’s ultimately the second biggest reason that I like events like these: it allows (with a little help from a few glasses of wine) competitors to say hi to each other, to look past the immediate rivalry and to see the long term partnership potential.

And the primary reason I like these events? Its the battle hardened consumers. Clearly! Those that walk up to us and give us 30 seconds to wow them with what we’re trying to achieve. You’re the crowd that keep us plugging away.

Philippine food pairings…

posted by philip in Food

I got back from Asia last night, still feeling the effects of the 12,500 mile flight and 12 time zone change and not being able to sleep so I made it into work at about 3.30 this morning. Am currently fading fast, but wanted to post this first.

I have a lot I could write about, but really its the exotic food that gets me every time I go traveling. I was out there for a wedding (Hong Kong) as well as some diving (Philippines). I also met up with a few of the Snooth investors who are based out there, so think of it as nearly a work related trip. One of the investors in particular, Ryan Moynagh, is also a fan of exotic foods - and we’ve traveled the world tasting the best and worst of whats on offer.

During the few days we were together - I was there to bring him up to date on Snooth business - we really did a good job trying out the local fare. In Hong Kong that was sharks fin soup and abalone (both very auspicious dishes and served at the wedding) and in the Philippines it was chicken entrails (chewy, like the abalone) and something I’ll talk about later.

The Philippine people really go out of their way to eat every creepy crawly they can, from Monitor Lizard (bayawak - which we spent 3 hours looking for), to turtles (we took a taxi to a pretty scary looking downtrodden shanty town looking for this), sharks, live worms, ants eggs, monkey brain, fruit bat, rat and so on, no animal is left uneaten. And, even with animals we know well in the west, they make sure they eat every last piece. A lot of the base parts are barbecued and sold on sticks, so you can get pigs ears (known as “walkmans”), chicken feet (aka “adidas”), the entrails that I tried (”IUD”) and many other parts.

Saved for last, however, is the popular after drinking treat called balut (pronounced “balooot”). This is a fertilized duck egg - the closer to hatching the better. A duck usually hatches at 28 days and balut is eaten at either 18 or 21 days. At 18 days its still slightly egg like, with a yoke, but with a soft carcass inside. At 21 days the duck has a beak and feathers and most of the yoke is gone. Its smelly, filled with a strange liquid, and totally gross. I’ve eaten snake, guinea pig, toad, frog, crow, eel, heart, eyeballs and several family pets, but this really stretched what I was prepared to put in my mouth.

From wikipedia: Balut are most often eaten with a pinch of salt, though some balut-eaters prefer chili and vinegar to complement their egg. The eggs are savored for their balance of textures and flavors; the broth surrounding the embryo is sipped from the egg before the shell is peeled and the yolk and young chick inside can be eaten. All of the contents of the egg are consumed, although the whites may remain uneaten. In the Philippines, balut have recently entered higher cuisine by being served as appetizers in restaurants: cooked adobo style, fried in omelettes or even used as filling in baked pastries.

I was going to attach an image, but its not for the feint hearted, so I’m just dropping in a link of a 21 day old balut egg.

Balut is commonly eaten with beer or gin, but I was only able to get it down with copious tequila and a lot of vinegar to mask the taste.

We did also try some wines while we were out there: a coconut wine as well as a bignay berry wine. Both were pretty terrible. I bought a bottle of the coconut wine back to the office and it hasn’t won me any friends…

I’m going back for sure - the island of Palawan has some of the best diving in the world and I didnt manage to make it out there. Maybe next time it’ll be chilled monkey brains in pure Indiana Jones style.