About It Was A Good Year, Inc. ("IWAGY")
It Was A Good Year, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation formed and incorporated in 1980 for the purpose of learning about wine via educational wine tasting. It is run by its members through its elected officers, including an Executive Board (aka Board of Directors). Prior to the pandemic (1980-2019), the Club sponsored about 10 wine tasting events a year. Wine tastings are mostly held on weekday evenings, and usually start at 6:00-8:00 PM; they are led by wine professionals or Club members who discuss the wine theme, as well as the individual wines. Many of these presenters choose to embellish their talk with visual aids like PowerPoint projected slides, etc. A typical line-up includes 8 wines. At most regular wine tastings, participants are seated and face the presenter. Tasting pours are small and tasters are encouraged to spit or dump unwanted wine (“dump cups” provided), and to manage their wine consumption. During the pandemic, we began holding wine tastings virtually via Zoom. We resumed indoor face-to-face events (on a limited basis) in July 2021.
Although the main focus of the Club is on education, occasionally dinner-tastings are held at better local restaurants; several wines are selected to match the menu. Alternatively, other food-wine pairing events take place at rented venues (Locust Grove, Cunneen Hackett Art Center, etc.). These food-wine events afford members an opportunity to experience and appreciate pleasing wine and food combinations. Our regular wine tastings are held in various venues in the Mid-Hudson Valley area.
The Club's membership fee is paid annually. Membership runs on a calendar-year basis. Members are entitled to reduced rates for most tastings and dinners, and to a newsletter (approximately monthly). The newsletter is mainly an invitation to each upcoming event, and describes the theme. The Club gives members an opportunity to meet other people who are interested in learning about wine. It also maintains its own website, IWAGY.org.
If you have any questions about membership, etc, please see the membership section of this website tab, or contact any of the Executive Board:
(all telephones 845 AC)
Executive Board:
Tim Free (timothybfree@gmail.com), 896-6361 (founder)
Stephanie Pyrek (shp0304@aol.com), 454-3402
Arnie Serotsky (arnieSer@aol.com), 473-8426
Officers: Arnie Serotsky (Vice President; e-mail address above)
Art Lichtman (Scribe-produces & distributes newsletters) (ArthurL32@verizon.net) 454-7359
Chris Umlauf (Treasurer) (chrsumlauf@gmail.com)
Advisory Committee Arnie Serotsky, chair (e-mail address above)
Steve Effron (Sleefco@aol.com)
Ed Hartmann (hartmann@prodigy.net)
Clay Morrissey (espz2@aol.com)
(Arnie Serotsky, along with Joe DiDonato, also maintains our website, IWAGY.org)
