A Cambridge Cellar (Red White Boston Event!)

This post is brought to you in large part by @RedWhiteBoston, @WholeFoodsRVR and @PantherVin who joined forces to host a really dynamic, interesting and informative wine tasting last week!  The setup for the tasting was simple; RedWhiteBoston knows wine and wine events,  Panther Distributing distributes (yes, you guessed it) wine to the greater Boston area… and WholeFoods on River Street has a wonderful little room with space for wines, appetizers and people!  The evening was attended by people throughout Cambridge and Boston- who really know their wines.  After each tasting, we were asked to “judge” the wines with some fun… albeit vague… badges.  For example “off the beaten vine” and “easy drinking.”  Rarely do I find wines NOT for “easy drinking,” so luckily (for the lushes in the crowd) we were given a ‘cheat sheet’ for appropriate badges per bottle.   In addition to this fun setup, we were also doing out part to help inform the Whole Foods crew which wines to purchase for the store.  Thus, I’d call this, among the most productive of wine tastings I’ve attended 🙂

(apologies for the photos and lack thereof. Mine came out very poorly!)

What Would Voldemort Drink?

Last night I tried a Spanish wine at a bar, which is often a dicey choice… depending on the bar.  I say that because Spanish wines are known for their variability in quality depending on the age, vineyard, climate, weather… it’s just a variable climate for grape growin’.  To intensify the problem of knowing which wine to select… you will always overpay for wine when you’re drinking “out” rather than buying your own bottle, so it’s hard to tell the price point/quality of the wine.  If you REALLY know your wines, then you’re probably just fine (and probably not frequenting the same establishments as I do).  I tend to be that girl who selects wine based on the label and the price (I typically choose more expensive Spanish wines to try to allay the potential for a bad one).  And seeing as bar prices reflect nothing of the bottle costs- it’s just a precarious venture.  But, I made that choice last night– with the Conde de Valdemar Crianza 2005.  It was well, interesting.  I might preface this a bit more by stating a good rule of thumb: if you’re in a typical bar is Somerville, especially one where you could find a full crew of people in running attire (short shorts, anyone?)

on a Monday night, you might want to skip the mystery Spanish wine and stick with a cold beer.