DrinkLocalWine.com

Tickets on sale for DLW 2012: Colorado

And they're a bargain -- just $35 a session, or $65 for everything. Click this link to purchase tickets.

What do you get for your money?

• Three Colorado and regional wine seminars, featuring some of the top names in Colorado and national food and wine.

• The Colorado Blind Challenge, where wine experts will try to tell the difference between Colorado and California wine in a blind tasting.

• The Colorado Twitter Taste-off, where you can sip, tweet and repeat wine from two dozen of the state's best producers.

What else do you need to know? The conference is April 28 at Metro State College in Denver -- seminars begin at 9 a.m. and the Twitter Taste-off starts at 2 p.m. The complete schedule is here, and admission for the morning session includes lunch.

The caveats: All sales are final and no refunds, and you must be 21 or older to participate in the Twitter taste-off.

We have a new phone number

We're sprucing things up for DLW 2012: Colorado; hence, a new phone number -- 469-554-9463. If you have questions about the conference or buying tickets, give us a call.

You can also reach us via email -- just click on the link on the top of the page.

Thank you, USA Today

And why thanks? Because in Wednesday's edition of the country's only daily national newspaper, it writes about wine made in states other than California. Which, of course, is what we do here. The article discusses wine from Michigan, Virginia, New York, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii.

And special thanks to Andrew Stover, the Washington, D.C, wine guru and long-time friend of DrinkLocalWine, since it looks like he had more than a little to do with getting this story written.

Morgan Goodman wins 47-word essay contest

Morgan Goodman's homage to Virginia wine is the winner of this year's 47-word essay contest to celebrate Regional Wine Week. Wrote Goodman:

Virginia wine… a way of life.
I met my husband over a bottle of Horton’s Sparkling Viognier.
We fell in love while traveling to vineyards around Virginia.
We said “I do” at Potomac Point Vineyard.
Now we have family picnics at Barrel Oak Winery with our daughter.

Goodman wins two tickets to DLW 2012: Colorado, our fourth annual conference in Denver in April, plus an autographed copy of Todd Kliman's best-selling book, The Wild Vine.

Seven other entries won prizes:

• Renee Keele, who wrote about Arizona wine (wine lovers combo pack from from Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach).

• Kimberly Marshall, who wrote about Maryland's Patuxent River region (copy of The Wild Vine).

• Stephanie Wetherill, writing about Texas (copy of The Sipping Point, Laurie Forster, The Wine Coach).

• Jean Wilson, the Red Wine Diva, writing about North Carolina (copy of The Sipping Point).

• Nancy Bauer, who wrote about Virginia wine (10-pack of Wine Shields wine closures).

• Paul Dickman, writing about the norton grape (10-pack of Wine Shields).

• The pseudonymous Swirl, Sip, Snark's take on Virginia wine (copy of The American Vintage wine book).

Our thanks to everyone who entered.