‘So what do you think the wine tastes of?’ is one of the one of the most frightening questions to be asked during an evening class in wine appreciation. Because not only is your ability to pronounce waffle being judged but also how well you’ve got the whole body language thing under control. Because bum shuffling and mumbling gets ‘nul points’ when you’re face-to-face with teacher. But what if all that could be avoided? It can if your wine class meets online through Twitter.
Twitter is a way for a bunch of people to talk to one another online. And if they have a shared interest even better. So wine enthusiasts can interact and type messages discussing what a wine tastes like and whether it matches certain foods – all without setting eyes on each other and from the comfort of the front room.
Which should reduce the pressure a bit if your last experience of learning was a draughty classroom and a chalk-chucking teacher.
So how do you go about organising a wine class on Twitter?
First you’ll need to create a Twitter account (just go to Twitter.com and fill in the online form) and convince several like-minded friends to do the same. Then encourage everyone to ‘follow’ each other (that’s Twitter language for reading messages from the people you chose) and announce with your first ‘tweet’ when the first tasting takes place.
Use your second 140-character tweet (time and messages are short on Twitter) to announce the particular wine to taste during the first ‘class’. Suggest a wine that’ll be easy to get – a well-known brand available from supermarkets and corner shops is a good choice.
And on the night of the tasting make sure all your tweets, and everyone else’s, contains a keyword preceded by the # symbol so that the #tasteclass tweets are tagged and don’t get lost among the rest of the Twitter traffic.
The following wines make good choices for a Twitter tasting.
Then let me know how it goes through Twitter @huxelrebe.
PG Wine Reviews
Tesco Chilean White
£3.89 Tesco
Fantastic value for a very acceptable fruit white. Expect bananas, lemon and peach flavours.
Tesco Vin de France Red Wine
£3.99 Tesco
New label, better wine. Cheap and lightly fruity red that’ll do most things you require – like match to pizza, lasagne and sausages. Cherry and blackberry flavours.
La Metropole French Cuvee Classique Red 2013
£5.99 Co-op (down from £6.99 until February 3)
Cherry, damson and tobacco flavours. A little bit more oomph than the Tesco red.
Chateau Capitoul 2012, French Languedoc
£6.99 Co-op (down from £7.99 until February 3)
High quality stuff – cherry choc liqueur in a bottle.
Taittinger Brut Reserve NV Champagne
£36.25 Asda, £36.99 Tesco, £26.65 (only when buy 2+) Majestic
A light champagne that everyone should agree upon: apple, nuts and lemon with a light sparkle.
Tweet me a wine question @huxelrebe
© Paula Goddard 2015 www.paulagoddard.com
