I must say great job to the hosts of the #WAwine Twitter community tasting and especially to fellow blogger and Spokane wine guru, Josh Wade, who has burst on the scene to become possibly the most influential online wine personality and brand in the past few months. At the time of this writing, which is close to my bedtime on the east coast, #wawine had close to 900 tweets just tonite with over an hour still to go.  Total tweets were over 1500 for the week so far.  At the bottom of this post are some tips for participating in Twitter wine tastings.

The Wine

For this weeknite event I did not go out and purchase anything “special” per se but rather rummaged in the cellar to see what I had lying around.  I was hoping for a 2004 Januik Cabernet Sauvignon that CellarTracker told me I still had, but, alas, I think it was another casualty of a recent late night after-tasting party.  As Forrest Gump says, “It happens.”  Instead I came across some left over 2008 Snoqualmie Naked Riesling from a Popeye’s fried chicken tasting as well as a 2007 Red Diamond Cabernet Sauvignon.  Both considered value wines, neither blew my socks off, but helped me enjoy my evening tweeting along with some new and old friends online.

The Snoqualmie had a golden hue and was bright.  The nose brought on apples, citrus and petrol, which is a distinct characteristic of Riesling that I have described on this site many times before.  Acid was high, but not high enough in my opinion.  This wine is a little one-dimensional.

The Red Diamond was poured with a Wine Soiree decanter attached to the bottle for some accelerated aeration.  The alcohol in this wine was low at 13.5% but I still noticed some heat on the nose that took a few minutes to blow off.  Blackberries, cherries and raspberry on the nose and palate with a so-so finish.  Nice quaffer for a weeknight.

There were over 100 Washington wineries participating in the event, though not all were necessarily tweeting.  I was surprised not to see Buty on the list and was a little disappointed since their 2004 Merlot/Cab Franc blend is indeed a “beauty” in my opinion.  I kept seeing comments cascading through saying how packed each venue was, which was a great sign.  It seems the Washington wine scene has really adopted social media.

Did you participate in #wawine or any other twitter tastings for that matter?  Share your experience with us…

Twitter Community Tasting Tips

Here are a few tips if you are new to twitter community tastings:

1. A Twitter tasting is a great time to select other tweeps to follow because you know most if not all of them are wine lovers, producers/wineries, sellers, bloggers, etc… so you can easily “follow” many folks in the stream that you know are going to provide you some great wine-related tweets down the road.  You might say a “target rich” environment, but for quality wine info.

2. Engage in conversation with wineries, especially if you know you will be traveling to their area in the near (or distant) future, and follow them on Twitter or Facebook if they appear active.  Many wineries who are adopting social media may offer specials to those who connect with them via social media channels. So, when you are in the area you might get something like a free tasting, or better yet a private tasting, barrel sample, who knows what.  By using the social media channel you now have a relationship that the tasting room walk-up does not have.

3. If you are in the area, go and physically attend the event and tweet while you are there.  This puts the “social” right back into social media.  Sure, it’s fun to sit in your jammies with a glass of wine and follow the Twitter Fall.   But, nothing is like being there in person… and then share with those others out there who are still in their jammies wondering what they are missing.

For more information on upcoming Twitter Community Tastings, check out the Facebook fan page.

Cheers!