Looking to drink some wine and sharing notes with hundreds of your closest social online friends?  Of course you are… and you’d be right at home with Twitter Taste Live.  Without the overhead of hosting your own party that would include a lot of planning, cooking and cleaning, except for the fact that sometimes it’s hard finding the featured wines in your particular area, you can sit at home online and be part of an international tasting party… right at your keyboard.

I just participated in my third #TTL(that’s the twitter hashtag t0 follow tasting comments during these events) and even though I could find only 2 of the wines on the list tonight, I enjoyed sharing my thoughts and interacting with others who had interesting things to share about their impressions of the wines, what they were cooking with it or other off-the-wall statements (sorry, Joe, I had to do it):

Today’s event was titled Summer Selections and included Chablis, Riesling, Rose, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and Gamay.  Though I was able to find the Hugel et Fils Riesling from Alsace, it was the 2006 vintage instead of the 2007.  But, that’s the beauty of it… I still jumped in and gave my impressions and enjoyed the conversation.  It has some apple, citrus and just a hint of petrol, a distinct characteristic of Riesling.  Check out my NY post about this very interesting terpene found in Muscat, Riesling and sometimes Chardonnay.  The taste brought more citrus, nice balance of acid, and felt like I bit right into a Granny Smith Apple both from flavor and mouthfeel perspective.

Sure, I was supposed to get the 2008 Pascal Jolivet Sauv Blanc “Attitude”, but all I could find in Georgia (don’t get me started) was the 2006 Sancerre, which also consists of Sauvignon Blanc but come from two completely different areas of France, the Attitude is from Touraine on the lower or western part of the Loire Valley closer to the ocean, whereas Sancerre is in the upper Loire Valley about 200 miles south of Paris.  The soils are similar but fairly different as well with Touraine being more calcareous and Sancerre being more chalky.  We got some grapefruit, tangerine, minerality and some slight rockiness.  This was really refreshing and was my wife’s favorite of the two.  I preferred the Riesling.

Some folks have been really expanding on the TTL vibe and running live video streams of their own parties that are following right along with the program.  @mmwine is often online and last week I joined @dirtysouthwine for a live stream (via Ustream) of the St. Supery TTL which involved some serious hijinx including removing of shirts and a chicken suit.  I’ll leave it at that.

Until the next TTL…when I might see you streaming live myself…. Cheers!