WINE RIOT Round Two

WINE RIOT Definition: 250 Wines from Around the World – Wine Crash Courses dishing the knowledge of grapes, regions and growing trends, plus foods from local Boston restaurants

Question to ponder – If you could only drink one wine the rest of your life what would be?
After having an amazing time Friday at the Wine Riot's “Night of Bubbles”, Rachel and I were geared up for more classes, more glasses and more fun . . .  we were surprised when we arrived to see the exact same set-up. Some of the distributors from Friday night didn't show Saturday, but double the people at the event.   So we took to the riot like pros, we visited our new friends from Esporao and decided to start the evening off  by sampling their Red as we had only done tasted their whites Friday night.  

Then it was off to some of the tables were we unable to make it to on Friday.  But the lines were long, it was crowded around the tables and we felt a little rushed by the distributors . . . This was the EXACT opposite experience we had on Friday night . . . 

So we decided to grab our new favorite cocktail the “Ginger Assassin” at the TY-KU table and head to a class called “This Smells like Road Kill but I like it!” – can you imagine? I had to see "what on earth" the speaker was actually going to talk about – and what would smell like Road Kill but taste good?  The premise of the session was to uncork some of the more exotic wines – spell them (pewwwwww) then taste (yummmmm). It was a very entertaining  view of the “funkier side” as the speaker called it of old world fine wines. 

Then it was off to our new friends from Esporao’s session on “Making Old School Wine Cool Again” with Portuguese wines everywhere now it was an interesting look into a country that has been making fine Red and White wines since the Holy Roman Empire.  After our  classes were over we did a few more tastings and decided to leave because we had done the photo booth night one (Still lol at Rachel & I picture), got the Amy Winehouse/pin up girl @ the tattoo station (hot), games (won the beer Koozie) and classes were over – we concluded we had Rioted and wanted to go check out Scampo and Cell at the Liberty hotel.   Check out @ZipSetRachel review of them.

My Recommendations . . .

My recommendation for anyone who will be attending the Wine Riot next year (Rachel and I will be back) is to go on Friday night.  The tickets are only $5 more, but the lines are shorter, you can spend a lot more time with the distributors, plus all of the distributors were there.  It was a great time and my top picks of wines from the Riot are:

• Esporao – Monte Velho White and Defesa Red
• Yellow +Blues – Sauvignon Blanc, Central Valley Chil
• Ty-Ku Sake – White
• 90+  Cellars – Malbec, Calchaqui Valley, Argentina
• Carelli 34 degrees – Malbec, Argentina
• Terra Andina Chile – Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve