Like so many millions of others, the pandemic threw me immediately into the world of Zoom, where all of my meetings, many interviews, and even conferences went to exist in digital form for so many months. While I regularly participated as part of our teams during editorial and manager meetings — and occasionally got to be an audience member for food, wine, and other informational presentations — I most frequently served as the host of these Zoom affairs. With nowhere else to turn when the world shut down, food & drink professionals needed to stay relevant somehow, and I was happy to help lead their conversations — all, conveniently, from the comfort of my own home.
There were weeks when I’d moderate three or more different sessions in a week: for example, an hour-plus masterclass for other national media on the new Alisos Canyon appellation on a Monday; a 45-minute discussion with Sta. Rita Hills winemaker discussion on Tuesday (I did more than 20 of those ); and then a dive into Santa Barbara restaurants for the the Downtown Business Spotlight series , a partnership between the Santa Barbara Independent and Santa Barbara Downtown that’s tallied about five dozen shows so far.
Like so many other Zoom-based broadcasts, those series are either done or, in the case of the latter, winding down. Unless the Omicron variant has dastardly plans, we’re planning to turn the Downtown Business Spotlight into a live series in 2022, and I look forward to showcasing winemakers in person next year as well, especially during the return of World of Pinot Noir at the Bacara in March. There’s already a ton of excitement around that.