Meet Richard Fadeley
Richard Fadeley, a wine lover who lives in Columbia, S.C., is an industrial fence contractor and president of an international marketing company in the fence industry. As WebWineMan, he writes a wine column for Free Times in Columbia, S.C.
Fadeley's tasting group consists of 14 people, with occasional substitutes or guests. Husbands and wives, a couple of stock brokers, a dentist, a college professor, a teacher, a nurse practitioner, a software designer, and a regional sales manager make up the group. ( For more information about how his tasting group works, see below.)
Now online:
- Trading with Joe
- Merlot holds its own
- Wines for the turkey
- What's up with organic wine?
- Put a little sparkle in your summer
- Wine for summer: Sauvignon Blanc
- The Enchanting Grape
- Gamay finds its natural home in Beaujolais
- Pinot Perfection: Oregon Finds Its Soul
- The Other "Down-Under": South African Wines
- How Much Is Too Much? Alcohol in Wine
- A River (of Wine) Runs Through It: The Loire Valley's Classic Whites
- Washington Wines: Worth a Look
- Wine's Winning Ways
- Beaujolais Best Buys
- For Autumn Reds, We Like Pinot
- Wine's Designated Hitter: Pinot Grigio
- Resplendent Rosés for Your Summer
- Foodies Rejoice – This One's for You!
- Wines for your Valentine
- Haul out the holly – and the bubbly
- Wine's Most Enchanted Vineyards
- For A Summer's Red, We Taste Pinot Noir
- It's Time to Cool Things Down
- A South American Gold Mine!
- Out of Nowhere! – The Moscato Moment
- Sparkling Showdown!
- Beaujolais' Best Buys
- A Case of Summer Wines
- Gimme That Old-Time Religion!
- Drinking the Blood of Jove!
- Party Time!
- Are You Ready for Something Nouveau?
- A Shelter in the Storm – White Burgundies!
- Big Bottle Best Buys!
- Spain does Sparkling
- 'Think pink' to beat the heat
- A tasting with your favorite wine
- Tippling the Tango: Tasting Argentine Wines
- The Wines of Italy
- Champagne shootout!
- Bordeaux on the Fly!
- Resplendent Rosé
- Oysters on Parade!
- Wine's Winning Ways!
- St. Valentine's Wines
- It's Time for Mistletoe and Bubbly!
- Négoçiant Wines
- The Renaissance Grape
- Wine Travels - the Loire Valley
- You Say Gris, We Say Great!
- Bordeaux up-close and personal
- The Lowdown on Screwcaps
- Holiday Bubbly!
- Top Value Wines from Beaujolais and the Mâconnais
- Feel Hot, Think Pink!
- Iberian Summertime Whites
- Merlot Gets Up Off the Mat!
- Shiraz-a-ma-Taz
- A Bounty of Bubbles!
- Pinot Noir: What's All the Fuss About?
- The Other White Wine!
- Chardonnay
- Southern Rhône Reds
- Wines for Your Sweetie
- It's Time for Mistletoe and Holly!
- Good Gris, Great Gris!
- Sauvignon Blanc: Break Out the Beach Balls!
- Chianti: The Black Rooster Crows
- California's red gold: Cabernet
- A Bounty of Bubbles
- Hunting for bargains
- A Rose is a Rose is a Rosé!
- Wine salute to summertime!
- A Northern Italian sampler
- A case for diversity
- Sparkling Wine Wingding!
- Talking turkey!
- Pinot Gris and Grigio
Richard explains how his group tastings work. It's a good model for anyone considering setting up a tasting group or club:
"1. We usually set a limit on the wines that we taste ($25 for Chards, Merlot, Spanish, $35 for Bordeaux - my favorite - and Pinots, $50 for Champagnes.
"2. We will do wines under $12 or something like a wine dinner where we will have maybe eight wines.
"3. When we did Beaujolais, we tasted eight nouveaus blind, then we were led through a non-blind tasting of eight George Dubeouf 2000 crus. When we tasted Pinot Gris and Grigio we picked the Trimbach No. 1 and the King Estate No. 2 along with quite a few other very nice wines. You can't argue with our results, since we are average/above average tasters and the results spead for themselves.
"We do get the wines from four to six distributors, but the competitive aspect offsets the potential conflict of interest. We only list the better 50%-65% of what we taste, and we have the benefit of the people who know their products picking the starting lineup. Great fun. And because we are in Souh Carolina we get a typical cross section of wines that seem to be available in most places (if I were doing this article in NY we might get quite a few wines that are hard to find elsewhere)."
To contact Richard Fadeley directly, write him at allsteel@msn.com