Red White Tasting Crew

Boston’s newest wine lovers meet-up group, the Red White Tasting Crew, met for the first time last night at the Enormous Room in Cambridge’s Central Square.

Perfect for a chilly evening, the Enormous Room, which is above Central Kitchen,  is dimly lit with pillow-lined benches for lounging. It ended up being an ideal location for wine tasting.

Because the Tasting Crew is a Red White Boston group, I arrived a little early to see if I could help out. Surprisingly, even after a 16 mile run (where I saw Anthony Bourdain!), I wasn’t sore and had quite a bit of energy which ended up being a good thing because the Tasting Crew drew quite the crowd!

The long rectangle-shaped space that is the Enormous Room had several tables which Cathy from Red White Boston had set up bottles of wine, glasses, and tasting sheets with both notes about the wines and some conversation starters for the tweet-up portion of the event. As the event went on, then tweets were flying!

As soon as Tasting Crew members started to arrive I started pouring wine. The first up was Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noirs, a sparkling wine I have enjoyed time and again, especially on visits to their Carneros tasting room (Gloria Ferrer visits here and here and here).

Next up was a surprise wine, not on the list. Panther Distributing brought a McClaren Vale Chardonnay, K1. This was one of the wines I missed over the course of the night; while pouring I actually didn’t get to empty my own glass often, a good thing after the long run and not a lot of food!

I did enjoy the wines that I tasted, which included a Grenache Syrah, Plume Bleue that I enjoyed at the Amanda Hesser Formaggio Kitchen event. Blending two of my favorite grapes, the Plume Bleue is just fruity enough with a hint of spice to give it some edge. This wine can be found at an excellent value, and I would definitely recommend having a few bottles on hand.

Cathy got our attention when she talked about the 2003 Nicolette Christopher Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, and her love for this wine was spot on. This was a spectacular sip with classic Napa Cab flavors with an extra bit of elegance and a lush full mouth feel. It made me even more excited for another visit to Napa in March for the Napa Valley Marathon. It is getting close!

Also in the tasting lineup were two Malbecs from Cahors, France and a blend of Carignan, Grenache, and Syrah, a Domaine de Fontsainte Domaine Rouge, from Corbieres in Southwestern France. I missed these while pouring, but I have two out of the three in my wine fridge. I am planning a Malbec tasting of a Cahors Malbec, an Argentinian Malbec, and a Napa Malbec sometime soon, all for the sake of the blog. The things I do

My favorite wine of the evening ended up being another not on the list, a Shiraz brought by Panther Distributing. It was simply stunning, and I didn’t even get the name. I will definitely be getting in touch with Panther and will share once I have that information. You have to try it.

Some light snacks including bread, hummus, and olives were scattered throughout the room for nibbling throughout the night. Somehow I ended up so busy chatting and pouring I also missed these.

It was completely worth it though; I met and reunited with some of Boston’s best food and wine folks, and the vibe in the room was just so festive and positive. I genuinely can not wait until the next Tasting Crew event and look forward to collaborating with my fellow testers in the future.

For more (and much better) photos, head on over to F2%, a really beautiful blog written by the husband of my very first real boss. Justin is an amazing photographer, and it was great to run into him last night at the Red White Boston tasting event.

Do you belong to any meet-up groups in your city? How do you best do your networking, via social networking platforms or in more traditional in-person ways?