wine book club

Host a UN-Lame Wine Tasting Party

For a wine geek like myself, almost any wine tasting peaks my interest. I don’t care much about the surroundings or circumstances. I’ve found myself sitting at an old card table in someone’s garage, tasting a number of very nice wines, and had a great time. I have also found myself sitting at a huge mahogany conference table in a private suite at some swank hotel, also tasting some great wines, and having a great time. I can enjoy both, and everything in-between. But when YOU decide to host a wine tasting or wine party, you need to keep one thing in mind. Make it fun.

Many people just hear the term “wine tasting” and they suddenly picture themselves sitting next to some geek at a large oval table, swirling wine and taking tasting notes for 2 hours. This is enough to make a possible guest of your so-called “tasting”, schedule a dentist appointment just to get out of it.

I always recommend a far more casual and fun tasting that will guarantee 95% of your friends a great time. Drop any plans to have everyone sit down all together at a table. Turn up the music a bit and for god’s sake, invite some women. Most all guy tastings suck, unless you call it a business meeting.
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The 2002 Boston Wine Expo

This was the pre-party for Super Bowl XXXVI, plain and simple. As excited as I was about planning my weekend around the Expo it was really just a stop before the big game. Boston was fired up that February 3rd and the electricity was in the air inside and out. The skies where clear and there was no sign of snow or freezing rain in the forecast that might hamper our efforts to get home in front of the big screen T.V. before kickoff. The Wine Expo from 1:00 to 5:00, and Super Bowl from 6:30 to 10:30. It couldn’t have been planned any better than that.

There was no shortage of winery reps and distributors wearing Patriot jerseys, and impromptu raucous chants of “Pats”, “Pats”, “Pats”, did take place at a few tasting tables here and there. The scene was pretty cool, and I’m sure that plenty of wine geeks there were concerned that all this football hoopla was making this into more of a party than a professional tasting. Well when you start pouring 1800 different wines to thousands of people, things just happen. I like seeing people just enjoying wine. Tasting notes or not, spitting or not. Wine tastings should always be this much fun.
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Art & Wine Festivals

Almost every community around us in Northern California has some form of an art and wine festival. Some call it a fall festival or a summer festival – depending on the timing. Others use different names. The point is, if you are missing out on your local community’s art and wine festivals then you should go check one out. If your town doesn’t have one maybe it’s time to bring up the idea to the folks at the town hall.

At the time of writing this brief note, we had just gone to the Sunnyvale, California Art & Wine Festival. As a result, a couple of people we went with are still working off a little headache brought on by a little too much of the grape – oh yeah, and those barley and hops too.

Generally the art and wine festivals are much more than art and wine. Typically they have live music, great food including the ever so popular chocolate covered fruit (yup – I’m a health nut…) on a skewer that seem to sell out before I can ever get one, all types of bbq, chicken, pork, burritos, garlic fries, beer, and so on.
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