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Last Thursday night, the  Red White Boston Tasting Crew collided with the Future M Marketing conference for a tasting at  Central Bottle Wine & Provisions. Future M was a Marketing conference happening all over Boston, with sessions and events sprinkled around the city with some of the best minds in Marketing focusing on everything from brand strategy and experience architecture to next generation communities and emerging platforms. I was sad to miss it; when you work for yourself, there is not a professional development budget, at least in the beginning. One of the many things to think about when leaving the safety net of a big company (You also have to remember to order your own printer ink.)

Luckily, I was able to attend one Future M event as part of Red White Boston, and being that it was an event that involved wine, cheese, and tasting crew friends, well that made it even better.

I arrived at Central Bottle a little early to take photos. I hadn’t been to this beautiful wine and gourmet food store since their opening day. It had definitely changed a bit!

Central Bottle is a clean and modern space with great light from walls of windows that face out on to Mass Ave. Everywhere you look there is something delectable, cheese, bread, chocolate, wine, or beer.

And then more wine.

The large flat screen at Central Bottle was set up with two Twitter feeds, one for Future M and one for Red White Tasting Crew. I may have tweeted a few times just to see myself on the big screen.

I caught up with tasting crew members I hadn’t seen in months and chatted with some Future M participants before the tasting got started. This tasting was all about stories, starting with the fun story of how Central Bottle came to be. It’s a great story, one that it is easy to feel a part of, especially when Nick and Maureen started leading us through our tasting.

Red White Boston’s founder, Cathy Huyghe, who usually has wine open and waiting for us when we arrive for an event, structured this tasting a bit differently. Instead of diving right into the wine, we learned its story first.

The tasting lineup:

Dry Riesling from Ravines Wine Cellar in the Finger Lakes of New York

Cilegiolo Rosato from Bisson in the Liguria region of Italy

Le Poivre et Sel from Les Vin Contes in the Loire region of France

Enrico Cialdini Lambrusco from Cleto Chiarli in Italy

In addition to the usual wine info, the tasting sheet also included all of our Twitter handles and those of the wineries on Twitter. The sheet also included some key words and phrases that were part of each wine’s story.

The Ravines Riesling was a beautiful wine, both in its flavor and its story. Jason had visited the tasting room in the Finger Lakes just days earlier, and his description of the property made me want to go there immediately. His blog post and photos are beautiful;  be sure to check it out.

The cool climate of the Finger Lakes lends this wine a nice acidity which made it a pleasure to drink and also makes it an ideal pairing with food, including cheese.

The next wine, a rosato from Liguria, was, as we discussed, a perfect wine for this time of year. It is light enough for summer, but has enough body to be a rosé that you drink in winter. It had an herbal quality in the nose, and I also got a bit of rose petal before tasting its deep strawberry flavors.

Somehow I failed to photograph the third wine, my favorite of the evening. True to its name Le Poivre et Sel, this wine exhibited salty and peppery characteristics. I bought two bottles, and while I noticed more the marked spiciness on the palate, my husband commented more on the salinity. This is definitely an interesting wine and one that took him some getting used to. I loved it right off the bat, and it will definitely be making repeat appearances on our table.

While we tasted, we were treated to more food, this time salumi from Central Bottle’s case. Thin slices of salty, melt-in-your-mouth meats REALLY went well with this wine.

The final wine was a deep red, sparkling Lambrusco. Frothy and fruity, this wine would be perfect for sipping in very small pours but was a little too sweet for me. It was a nice way to wrap up the evening though, and another interesting choice from the folks at Central Bottle.

What a great tasting space and fun group of people to spend an evening with! The wines were diverse and ones I might never have had the chance to try if not for this tasting. I loved how everything came together in this event. I am excited for more Red White Tasting Crew events and also to return to Central Bottle, a great store with a great staff and selection.

Have you tasted any interesting wines lately, that you loved or didn’t love?

If you live in Boston, I would love to see you at the next Red White Boston tasting crew event! Lots of wine and networking with fun people. Let me know if you have questions.