Honorary President's Message

Season’s Greetings and welcome to a new style Grapevine!

Yes, it’s been quite a year. But 2020 soon will be past. As I write these words in the middle of December, the world has received the welcome news of multiple successful Covid-19 vaccine trials, thoroughly vetted, from a number of pharma companies in the western world and have begun vaccinations. Russia & China already are vaccinating their populations with earlier vaccine iterations. These newest vaccines are being made available to the most vulnerable and valuable among us, and that distribution will ramp up significantly as we turn the calendar over to 2021. Hopefully, we‘ll see the road home again.

This deadly novel coronavirus truly has been an existential threat to our International Wine & Food Society, which seeks to bind peoples together through the physical act of sharing food, wine, friendship and conversation. It always has been intimate. It is done close-up as we pass wines or food to those seated nearby. It literally is personal – hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart, shared with hugs.

For most of this current year, our 6000+ members around the world have been pushed away from each other. We’ve cautiously shielded our friends from the chance of a potentially deadly infection. All the while, we have creatively compromised. We produce varied virtual events allowing Society members to convene through a computer screen. Check out what the Chicago branch has been doing. They’ve enjoyed monthly black-tie events since before I was born. (Yes, a long time.) West Yorkshire has been doing the same, as has my hometown Pasadena, California branch. In the far north, both Helsinki and Moscow have remained inventively active. And, in the far east and further south, look what our friends in Taiwan and Australia are doing.

At some point in 2021, we again will be together with friends. At some stage, the masks will be a memory. We’ll lean toward the scent of tantalizing foods, collect the sound of clattering dishes and clinking glasses and, finally, capture some real smiles. We’ll be home once more.

As always, you have my very best wishes. Stay safe.

Dave Felton