It’s been several years since I started teaching magazine writing at Rowan University in Glassboro, but this fall was my first semester at the helm of a course called Online Journalism I. It’s been a great experience.

A funny thing happened on my way to the Second Annual Wine Bloggers’ Conference last week when I found myself stranded at San Francisco airport then rescued by Marcio Ferreira, a modern day version of Ferdinand Magellan who somehow instinctively knew when to ignore the GPS system and when to follow it as we made our way to Santa Rosa in the middle of the night.

On the final day of the Second Annual Wine Bloggers' Conference, the group drove to Montemaggiore Vineyards, a small, mountainside property in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley named after Sicily’s Montemaggiore Belsito—the ancestral home of the current owners, vineyard manager Vincent Ciolino and his winemaker wife, Lise.

The Beatles may have invented the Magical Mystery Tour, but the planners of the Second Annual Wine Bloggers' Conference perfected it.

The Second Annual Wine Bloggers' Conference that I attended last weekend in the Sonoma and Napa regions of California involved countless wine tastings, gobs of food, fascinating people, dynamic presentations, and gorgeous vistas. It’s a tough job but somebody had to do it.

John Howard-Fusco believes South Jersey “always gets the short end of the stick.” So he and wife Lisa decided to do something about it.