08/04/09 – a blind, boozy Tour de France

By Jesse on August 12, 2009

So you always wanted to compete in the Tour de France, but you were just never athletic enough? No worries… alcohol is the key, as usual, to making your dreams come true!

Come join us on Tuesday night as we go on a blind tasting tour of some of the classic French wine regions. Our host Liz is just a few weeks away from taking the final exam to receive her “I know hella lots about vino” certification, and part of that exam will be a blind taste test of various French wines. Help her study and test your own palate as we break open a few brown-bagged bottles of regionally-specific vin.

Here’s how it works…

All the bottles will be bought (and bagged) ahead of time, so you just need to bring your entry fee and your keen sensibilities. We’ll start out with a few whites, which we’ll blind taste one-by-one. Accompanying the wines will be a list of five or six different regional possibilities for you to guess from. Each of the wines that we pour will be on the list, but not all of the wines on the list will be among those that we pour. In other words, the list for whites might look like this:

1) 2008 Sancerre, Loire Valley (100% Sauvignon Blanc)
2) 2007 Chablis, Burgundy (100% Chardonnay)
3) 2006 Cotes du Rhone (Marsanne / Roussanne blend)
4) 2008 Alsace (100% Pinot Blanc)
5) 2007 Entre-deux-Mers, Bordeaux (Semillon / Sauvignon Blanc blend)

…and then out of those five, we’ll only actually pour three of them (so two are just there to throw you off your game). Then we’ll go through the same process with a couple of rosés, followed by a healthy lineup of reds.

Obviously we’ll spend some time discussing the various characteristics of each of the wines, as well as all the rules that mandate which French regions may produce which grape varietals — helpful stuff to know when navigating a wine list (or taking a sommelier exam). Even if you’re pretty horrible at the guessing game, you’ll still walk out of there not only drunker but smarter too.

We’ll probably have about nine wines total, so you’ll get a nice little cross-section of delicious French goodness for your edutoxication needs. The tariff for this tasty lineup will be $15 per person — a solid value, we like to think, for nine glasses of French wine. Of course we’ll do the standard cheese course and finish off whatever we haven’t drank yet as the evening wears on. (Word is that Liz has this legendary cheese for us that’s totally gonna blow our minds. Cannot wait!)

The residence in question is located in the delightful neighborhood of Brentwood. Our RSVP system functions like this: if you want in, you click on this link and tell me so (don’t forget your full name, e-mail address, and a cute message conveying to me your intentions). If you’re denied entry due to a meeting exceeding capacity, don’t worry — you’ll be at the top of the list the next week.

Once you’ve gotten your confirmation e-mail, you’re good to go… no need to buy a bottle. Just bring your $15 donation and your A-game. See you on Tuesday night!