The Taste3 conference has put some videos from their 2006 conference up on YouTube. All three talks they posted are worth a look: Dan Barber of Blue Hill, global warming and wine, and Bryant Simon on Starbucks.
One of the most enjoyable presentations at Taste3 was by mad scientist David Arnold, who made gin and tonic onstage, but without the tonic. (He added the fizz directly to the gin with a CO2 canister.) Pete Wells recently profiled Arnold in Food & Wine magazine. And here's an article from IT World.
Hiroshi Tanaka demonstrated his "fast aging" technique for wine at the Taste3 conference. I tasted some of the "after" wine and it was better and smoother than the "before" wine. A promising technique, especially for cheaper wines and spirits.
Taste3 conference
I was fortunate enough to attend the Taste3 conference in Napa Valley, CA over the weekend. What a nice change from technology conferences. Instead of software demo CDs in the schwag bags, there were bottles of wine and chocolate and instead of BOF gatherings on podcasting, there were dinners with fine wine and yummy cheese. As you would expect, the folks in the hospitality industry are a lot more outgoing than the nerds; except for me, there was a distinct lack of people standing in corners looking down at their shoes.
For the next few days I'll be posting some thoughts and links from the conference; I hope they'll be as interesting as the conference was.
