Speed Tasting #WBC13 Part 2: Red #Wine & 5 Tips for Twitter Tastings

On Friday, during the Wine Bloggers Conference in Penticton, British Columbia, we celebrated the white wines of the region during our speed tasting of 10 white, sparkling, rose, and ice wines.

On Saturday, we moved onto the red wines.

Speed tasting is much like speed dating.

In speed dating, one gender moves around the room, and the partners have five minutes to impress each other.

In speed tasting, the wine makers move around the room from table to table in a similarly synchronized fashion, hoping to impress the table of gathered bloggers with their wares.

It is crazy and chaotic and lots of fun.

As a veteran of the 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 Wine Bloggers Conferences,  as well as many many twitter tastings which are equally fast and furious, I have learned a few tricks about speed blogging and twitter tastings.

Tip #1: CRACKERS.

This year our tables were graced with marvelous crackers for palate cleansing from Gone Crackers, a company that has been around in Canada for 10 years and will be in the US sometime in 2013. The mild crackers were on every table during every session throughout the conference giving us a way to refresh our palates. THANK YOU Gone Crackers!! See you again in 2014 at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Barbara!

Tip #2:  SPIT.

It seemed to me that more bloggers than ever have figured out that BLOGGERS SPIT SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO. We had dump buckets on the table but it’s a lot easier, and quicker to just spit into a cup. Which is what most of us did.

Tip #3: HYDRATE.

Don’t try to drink water DURING a speed or twitter tasting. Hydrate well BEFORE and especially AFTER.

Tip #4: BYO GLASS.

This year the hotel’s glasses were not wine glasses, really; they were small, thick lipped water goblets. They did not show off the wine, so I brought my own glass. Well, I brought a glass from the Thursday reception at See Ya Later Ranch…and then I grabbed a glass from the Friday night party at Nk’Mip. (The hotel grabbed both of them at one point or another).  When you’re speed tasting, whether for a twitter event or a speed dating event like at WBC, having a great glass makes a huge difference in how quickly you can come up with some sort of assessment or notes about the wine.

Tip #5: HAVE FUN!

Let your imagination go wild! Don’t worry about getting it “right” –just go with your gut, your instinct, the metaphor, the image that the wine presents to you.

PS @TinhornCreek is the largest family owned producer in the region; they make 30,000 to 40,000 cases a year; while @mtboucheriewine is the largest family owned by vineyard acreage.

Read more about the red wine speed tasting and who was pouring at the Wine Bloggers Conference Site.

Thanks to the Wine Bloggers Conference Scholarship for helping me attend WBC13 in Penticton! Donate today to send citizen bloggers to WBC14 in Santa Barbara!

6 thoughts on “Speed Tasting #WBC13 Part 2: Red #Wine & 5 Tips for Twitter Tastings”

  2. Pingback: Speed Tasting Red Wine at the Wine Bloggers Conference

Please Comment! I'd love to hear from you!

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s