Above: Brett Zimmerman, founder of the Boulder Burgundy Festival, presents the Friday night dinner at last year’s gathering.

It gives me great pleasure to share the news that our good friend Elaine Brown will be a featured speaker at this year’s Boulder Burgundy Festival (Nov. 11-13).

She will be joined by Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle wine columnist, and Carlin Karr, wine director for Frasca Food and Wine, for the long weekend’s first seminar, “Sustainability in Burgundy.”

And she will also be moderating the Sunday morning seminar, “Burgundy’s Rising Stars: Chassagne Montrachet & Volnay.”

But the coolest thing will be getting to rub shoulders and raising a glass with her throughout the three days of tasting and breaking bread — and many snails — with her and a simpaticissimo group of Burgundy collectors and lovers.

If you’re reading a wine blog right now, Elaine needs no introduction.

She’s someone who reshaped the way we think about wine blogging as she pushed the envelope of digital enography over the course of more than a decade.

First through her groundbreaking work as an illustrator and then her reimagining of the blogosphere as a medium for personal, thought-provoking and socially conscious narrative, her voice has become a model for a new generation of wine-focused creators.

Over the years, she’s always been keen to remember back to an early blogger trip to Friuli where her own new voice found its cadence. One such occasion was Jancis Robinson’s announcement that Elaine had joined her corral of top wine writers in 2015. In that post, they share a deeply moving early essay by Elaine that many veteran enonauts will remember fondly. I highly recommend it.

Check out the festival site for more info and registration. Hope to see you there! Happy Labor Day Weekend.