Big day yesterday--we hosted our first wine tasting for my parent's (and by extension now, our) weekly wine group. Since the wine group is Torrance-based we held it at my parent's house. Our theme was "Young Wines"--the kind you'd buy today and drink tonight. We chose this particular theme since our wine cellar is made up nearly entirely of young wines. For those of you who have never attended a FAWG (Friday Afternoon Wine Group) event (which would be most of you), you start with a theme and everyone brings a bottle following the theme (to their best ability--we wouldn't have done so well with the "'94 Cabs" tasting). Everyone also brings an appetizer or dessert and the host usually serves some larger snack, although it's not meant to be a dinner--just tasting and grazing.
Our party was a smashing success. We had about 35 people there and our wines were complimented widely. By the time everyone puts their bottles down it's hard to tell who brought what so we always eavesdrop on whether people mention the wine we brought. Another good rule of thumb is how empty or full a bottle is. Word gets around quickly (as it tends to do when you've got 10 people standing around a table of wine bottles with another 15 or so chatting and eating) so the good wines almost always go first. We did have one of our selections, a Petite Syrah (for which I was wearing the matching T-Shirt) that just tasted "funky." You couldn't put your finger on it, but it was just a bit off, so we took it off the table. Our biggest hit was the Nalle Pinot Noir that we pulled out about 1/2way through. Seriously, that bottle was gone within 15 minutes. And everyone is pouring a "light" pour--just a few swallows for tasting--so it's not like people were tanking up on the Nalle (well, that we saw anyway--hee hee). Not to mention Kevin's high school friend Quynh--also a wine afficionado--who showed up with an impressive and wonderfully delicious Justin Isoscoles, earning the admiration of wineauxs everywhere.
Anyway, we got numerous compliments and everyone had a lovely time. Hooray! Now if I could only make this headache go away...
Posted by Shelby at August 7, 2005 01:38 PM