Mixing and Mingling Bordeaux Style

Over the past few months, I have been in contact with the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign. I have had the opportunity to learn a little about Bordeaux wine and to taste and write about a couple of Bordeaux wines (red and white). As I love to learn about wines that I am not familiar with, I was eager to attend the Bordeaux Matchmaking event held in Boston last night.

The event was held at Underbar, a venue that I had honestly never heard of and one that I had a little trepidation to enter. Once inside, the vibe was of a swanky 70’s style night club. Apparently local sports starts hang out here, and it kind of had that feel.

Can you dig it? 🙂

The concept of the matchmaking event is a lot of fun. Based on an online survey, you are assigned tickets to a certain tasting table. Then the fun begins as you try to swap table tickets with other attendees, encouraging the tasting of new wines and chatting with new people.

We were assigned to Table 6, and I will admit I was not a great mingler. I stuck with my table the entire time, but was very lucky in that the wine educator at Table 6 who was from Martignetti Companies, was educated in Bordeaux about Bordeaux wines. He was extremely knowledgeable and friendly which made tasting the wines a lot of fun and helped us find a couple of new wines to add to our shopping list.

I enjoyed a Sauvignon Blanc from Chateau Villa Bel Air to start. This wine was actually oak aged, like a Chardonnay so it had more depth and less acidity than Sauvignon Blancs I am used to. I enjoyed all of the reds I tried, but the 2005 Chateau Teyssier Montagne Saint Emillion was my favorite. It was really ripe and fruit forward, just delicious, and it almost felt filling, even though a had a small pour. Our wine educator truly made the experience, and I hope to have the opportunity to taste with him again.

The Bordeaux Matchmaking event is a great way to get exposure to some very drinkable and reasonably priced wines. Bordeaux wines may have had the classification in the past of being too expensive or high end, but the crowd at this event was made of many young people learning about and enjoying wines from a region new to us. The Life Goes Better with Bordeaux team did a great job in putting on a funky, fun event. I would have loved to have had a printout of the wines for my own future buying purposes, and I wish that there had been some readily available spit buckets, but other than that, a fun night for all!

Did you enter to win a $30 gift certificate to The Olive Press yet? What are you waiting for?!