On Saturday December 13 we had our first Wine Questers Tweetup Tasting.  Three of us from the Twitter wine community met for lunch at Gerre Vineyard and Winery’s wonderful cafe.  We then proceeded to taste and micro-blog our impression on Twitter at 6 wineries starting with Garre’s tasting room for the next five and a half hours.  (We poured out.)  Many in the wine community followed and discussed our impressions during the tasting room visits.  Our Tweetup was exposed the hundreds of tasters around the US and the world.

We will be developing the Wine Questers Twitter Tastups into regular events.  The wineries quickly recognized the value of live micro-blogging at their tasting bars and offered us nice discounts.

Below are the wines that I bought that I considered to be particularly interesting to taste. Red Feather and Little Valley had some killer wines that they wouldn’t sell us because their labels weren’t approved yet.  We tasted them and wanted to try them in a home context.  I’ll be blogging about the wines below as we try them.  If you are looking for interesting and tasty wines please try these and comment on them.  None are too soft to be boring but they won’t bite you.  The list below is in the order I pulled the wines from the case and bags.

Charles R Vineyards:

• 2006 Livermore Valley Zinfandel.
• 2005 Livermore Valley Cab Sauv.

Crooked Vine Winery:

• Stony Ridge Malvasia Bianca undated sparkling wine.
• Stony Ridge 2005 Livermore Valley Cab Sauv.
• Crooked Vine 2004 Livermore Valley Cab Sauv.
• Crooked Vine 2007 Livermore Valley Charve – Chard & Viogneir blend.
• Crooked Vine 2004 Aromatica Dessert Wine.

Red Feather Winery:

• 2004 Livermore Valley Merlot.
• 2005 Livermore Valley Jaiden’s Dessert Wine – unusual, dry, and tasty!

Les Chenes Estate Vineyards – specializing in very small case lots of Rhone style wines:

• undated Livermore Valley Deux Rouge – red wine.
• 2007 Livermore Valley Roussanne.
• 2007 Livermore Valley Mourvedre.  We finished the bottle over two days and sipped before dinner, during, and after.  Katya and I considered it better after it had time to breath and open up. Good quality and interesting but it this varietal takes a little getting used to for those unfamiliar with it.  Worth the “learning curve” though!

Little Valley

• 2002 Livermore Valley Cab Sauv.

Gerre

• 2005 Livermore Valley Syrah.
• 2006 Livermore Valley Merlot.