Thursday, March 25, 2010

#WAMerlot Twitter Tasting

One of my Twitter friends, Josh Wade, who is @drinknectar on Twitter and blogs at Drink Nectar, organized a Twitter Wine Tasting focused on Washington State Merlot. The premise was, you go to a winery, wine bar, restaurant, friend's house, or just stay at home, open a bottle or five of Washington Merlot, and tweet about the tasting experience using the hashtag #WAMerlot. Pretty low-key, right? WRONG! There must have been 50-60 people tweeting tonight, using the #WAMerlot hashtag! And many more were present at the many wine events throughout Washington, but not tweeting about it. I personally interacted with people in Virgina, California and of course Washington, along with 3 or 4 from my city of Portland, Oregon. What a fun event! My only downer was not having a group of friends over to help me drink some of the many Washington Merlot's I had ready tonight. Not a one...excuses, all. Boo! So lacking non-virtual drinking buddies, I only opened one bottle tonight: 2003 Terra Blanca Reserve Merlot, from the Terra Blanca Estate Vineyard on Red Mountain. My CellarTracker tasting notes, if you will:


2003 Terra Blanca Merlot Estate Reserve - USA, Washington, Columbia Valley, Red Mountain (3/25/2010)
Opened for #WAMerlot virtual tasting on Twitter. No decant. Paired briefly with Trader Joes Sour Cream & Onion corn puffs (excellent pairing, BTW). Nose of Earthy blackberries. Very earthy...and very nice aromas! Aromas follow to the palate, with an attack of big blackberry fruit, backed up by secondary flavors of earth, black pepper and spices (oak perhaps?). Very youthful, despite The Wine Enthusiast writer Paul Gregutt's concern that this wine might be fading (when I asked him on Facebook). Finish is all peppery with dark chocolate notes and some coffee/espresso, which I'm assuming is from the oak. Love this wine, and a great representation of Red Mountain Merlot. (92 pts.)