I've been following these posts for a while, and notice that Ontarians offer valuable notes and tastings. Any interest is establishing something
in the GTA? Not necessarily at a commercial venue as has been suggested. Besides co-ordinating dates with everyones busy schedules, what seem to be the snags?

Definitely have interest in an offline, even an informal one, but venue seems to be the pressing issue. It just depends on how many people are interested in attending. I'd be more than happy to open up my apartment to forumites, but it's not terribly large so anything more than 8-10 people for a tasting might be difficult depending on format. Dinners are a max of six at my place.

The holiday season is always difficult to co-ordinate schedules, but I think an offline would be possible in January if there is interest.

I host a local wine club of 20+ people at my place every month or two, but the problem is that I live in Brooklin (north of Whitby and 20 min east of Markham). Yup, I live in the boonies!!!

And resturants are too expensive due to the liquor laws in Ontario.

Any other ideas? I could host, but most Ontario forumites seem to live downtown or in the West end.

Baird, I live in Unionville and would be willing to host an event. For those of you downtown, I'm close to the 404 and the 407. As far as a venue, that's open for discussion. Let's just start something up and add to it progressively. Slan, are you in?

We tried to organize something a couple of months ago, but it fell apart over our inability to find a decent venue where we could BYOB.

My suggestion is that we should be less ambitious to start. Let's not try to do a dinner, but simply a tasting. Perhaps at someone's home. One thought that futronic had last time was to use the party room of a condominium, but we didn't seem to have any condo dwellers.

As for location, with all due respect to the suburbanites, my thoughts are that we should try to find a spot that people can get to via TTC or GO Transit.

DoktaP/Slan/Futronic,

I'm open to pretty much anything. The key is avoiding paying 300 percent markup on restaurant wines. An informal tasting would be best (no need to have the host go to any more trouble than providing the location, bread/water, etc).

Cheers.

Not wanting to sound too much like Paul Simon, but I agree to start small with tastings. Personally, whatever works for the majority is fine with me as far as locale. To expedite things, I can be reached at jester728@rogers.com.
I concur with futronic that some time in the new year we should plan to organize an inaugural tasting. There certainly appears to be lots of interest from forumites.

I'm in. As the saying goes... "Keep it simple stupid" Lets shoot for some time in mid to late January. I agree with others that Dec. is out of the question. Can you say R.I.D.E.?

Who knows? Maybe pyang will show up!

My other recommendation would be to have this on a weekend, preferably on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon/evening. I can already tell that an offline with this much interest will mean that at least a case of wine will be opened.

Another vote for TTC/GO Train access. I don't think anyone should be driving.

Let's start with a date. How are people with Saturday January 24th, 2003? In the evening?
Once established, we can then do the where, what, who, etc..... That should give adequate time.
"There's no such things as problems, only solutions".

Come the new year, my schedule is pretty open. Count me in for the 24th. Check your email. I've sent you a quick note so you have my address handy.

Dok.... Jan. 24'th sounds good. 2004 right?

Unless the fair Dok has a Delorian in his garage, I believe he means 2004.

I'm in . Maybe the theme should be aussie shiraz, vs? . Slan i'll bring an e&e you bring the rwt.

I'm sure a Dead Arm would show up

Sorry about the date. With all the enthusiasm and interest, I lost my sense of time. Yes, Saturday January 24th 2004!!!!
Keep the ideas rolling. We should do this as democratically as possible. If people wish Aussie vs "blank", let's discuss it.
If the date appears to be agreeable to most, let's ink it and try to work on a place.

I'm open to anything, themed or not. Perhaps doing the tasting blind would also be an idea?

theme was just a suggestion , i'm easy.

A blind tasting would be fun, and the no driving idea is also a good one. Aussie Shiraz would be good unless we end up with 1 bottle of Black Pepper, 1 bottle of RWT and 6 bottles of Dead Arm!

It appears that we already have 5 people confirmed. In order to keep things managable the first time around, I'd like to suggest that we keep the group size between 8-10.
Next step: Location
Any volunteers? Any suggestions?
The consensus is to have it accessible to public transportation. I concur unless you have a
designated driver.
I'm confident we can solve the location issue.

If that's the case, we could do it single-blind so we are sure that no wine is duplicated. The other option is to only have the host know what wines people are bringing to prevent dupes.

Or we could just have a boatload of wine from any region and just enjoy things that way!

Hey drthvader.... didnt you just score a bottle of 1998 Grange? Bring it on. (I bet you were hoping we might forget).

I live in the Beach so I'd be happy to host, but if people want to hold it elsewhere, that's fine too. It's definitely TTC accessible, right off the Queen Streetcar. There's also a GO station at Main/Danforth, or there's the GO at Union and it's a 15 minute cab ride away.

I'm tossing my hat in the ring and promise to bring a bottle of Angove's Classic Shiraz.