It would seem like gloating to write as many posts as I have wanted to from out here, so I’m condensing. I’ll be looking at the 2007 cabs out of barrel (yeee-ha!) ASAP.

*Napa’s reputation for being snooty is pretty much a crock. For every tasting room like the cold, soulless Opus One, there are 10 Robert Sinskeys, where the welcome is warm and the wine is wonderful. I was at Mumm Napa waiting to buy a coaster for a friend, and the guy behind the counter was recommending sundry other sparkling-wine tasting rooms to a couple of bubbly lovers. He even included my favorite under-the-radar choice — the Cliff Lede tasting room, where the superb sparklers from the previous winery on those grounds, S. Anderson, still are sold. That’s called sharing the wealth of this stupendous swath of the world.

*”Welcome to Seattle” were just about the first words spoken at the Wine Writers’ Symposium by director Jim Gordon. And indeed, the first few days of my visit brought steady rains and coolish temps (which I loved, and not just because of what I had left behind). But the words heard much more often we “man, did we need that.” Three years of subpar rain levels have left this area in danger of major drought. The recent precip staved off a bit of the fears, but they’re still well below normal out here and not out of the drought woods by any means.

*Even more frightened that the grape growers were most of the attendees at the conference, as newspapers’ struggles and intense competition in the blogging world — thank you ever so much for reading this one, btw, and please spread the word with your pals — have writers of all stripes on edge. So there was a lot of talk about how we can survive and thrive but, in my view, not nearly enough talk about you, dear readers. So — if there are topics and types of posts you’d like to see more (or less) of at this site, please let me know below or at bill.ward@startribune.com.

*Friday was astounding. Chatting up Cathy Corison and Pahlmeyer winemaker Erin Green for a half-hour apiece in the same room was just part of it. The day’s first tasting was a blind vertical of 2004-05-06 cabs. A a rule, the ’04s were drier, heartier and deeper; many of the ’05s were quite jammy but with some nice tannins underneath and the ’06s were supple  but not wimpy and truly too young to tell, at least for me. When we got our “cheat sheets,” my favorites across the board had been from Lail, Corison, St. Supery Dollarhide Ranch, Spottswoode and Darioush. Most intriguing were the ones from the folks at a local tasting room (!), Bounty Hunter, which might have serious aging potential.

Here’s hoping that we all have serious aging potential s we can visit this neck of the woods more often.

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