The event was held at Underbar, a venue that I had honestly never heard of and one that I had a little trepidation to enter. Once inside, the vibe was of a swanky 70’s style night club. Apparently local sports starts hang out here, and it kind of had that feel.

Can you dig it?

The concept of the matchmaking event is a lot of fun. Based on an online survey, you are assigned tickets to a certain tasting table. Then the fun begins as you try to swap table tickets with other attendees, encouraging the tasting of new wines and chatting with new people.

We were assigned to Table 6, and I will admit I was not a great mingler. I stuck with my table the entire time, but was very lucky in that the wine educator at Table 6 who was from Martignetti Companies, was educated in Bordeaux about Bordeaux wines. He was extremely knowledgeable and friendly which made tasting the wines a lot of fun and helped us find a couple of new wines to add to our shopping list.

I enjoyed a Sauvignon Blanc from Chateau Villa Bel Air to start. This wine was actually oak aged, like a Chardonnay so it had more depth and less acidity than Sauvignon Blancs I am used to. I enjoyed all of the reds I tried, but the 2005 Chateau Teyssier Montagne Saint Emillion was my favorite. It was really ripe and fruit forward, just delicious, and it almost felt filling, even though a had a small pour. Our wine educator truly made the experience, and I hope to have the opportunity to taste with him again.

The Bordeaux Matchmaking event is a great way to get exposure to some very drinkable and reasonably priced wines. Bordeaux wines may have had the classification in the past of being too expensive or high end, but the crowd at this event was made of many young people learning about and enjoying wines from a region new to us. The Life Goes Better with Bordeaux team did a great job in putting on a funky, fun event. I would have loved to have had a printout of the wines for my own future buying purposes, and I wish that there had been some readily available spit buckets, but other than that, a fun night for all!

Did you enter to win a $30 gift certificate to The Olive Press yet? What are you waiting for?!

Technorati Tags: Bordeaux, Boston, events, wine, wine tasting

The white Bordeaux is a lovely pale straw color as you can see here on a sunny spring-like day

The nose was slightly floral and woodsy with a very mild citrus fruit taste. Its a very easy wine to drink, not a white that makes you pucker because its too acidic, and not at all buttery or oaky like a Chardonnay. It was perfect chilled for just about an hour as it was cold but still warm enough to really let all of those flavors come out. I am very grateful to the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign for introducing me to another white wine that I like. With warmer days upon us, I have been looking at our wine rack and thinking we may have too much red I had never tried white Bordeaux before, and I love that I had the opportunity to try this bottle. Life Goes better with Bordeaux is hosting an event in Boston this May, and I am looking forward to trying more Bordeaux wine, both at the event and before then! If you haven’t checked out their website, do, as it provides helpful suggestions for Bordeaux wine based on the wines you already know you like.

Since it was such a lovely day, and I was feeling super fit and healthy after my run, I decided on simple salads with lots of yummy ingredients to go with the wine.

Its funny how I pretty much never get sick of salads, because I am constantly buying new ingredients to add to them. Its a great way to fit in many servings of fruits and veggies at the end of the day. Plus its a nice way to get out of cooking if you just worked a whole day and had a big workout

Our Monday night salad was a base of baby spinach (about 3 cups for each of us) topped with shredded cabbage, avocado, beets, pickled vegetables, olives, jalapenos, carrots, and Trader Joe’s mango chicken sausage. With all of those yummy flavors, you don’t even need dressing! The zing and the crunch of the pickled veggies especially bring a lot of deliciousness to the salad without adding any fat. The salad went great with the wine, and I suspect the wine would go great with any light meal or mild cheese. As the representative that sent me the wine noted, it would be great for a picnic! Ahhh dreaming of wine country picnics

What are your favorite salad toppings? Is a salad enough to fill you up as a meal, or do you like to eat something else with it?

Have you enter my Secrets of a Skinny Chef giveaway? It ends on Friday, and my charity raffle for The ALLY Foundation and the chance to win a $100 Williams Sonoma gift card, in addition to a bunch of other great prizes, ends on my birthday, March 20! Since its charity Tuesday on Twitter, might you consider helping me spread the word today? I’d appreciate it!

Technorati Tags: Bordeaux, Food, giveaway, salad, wine, wine and food pairing

The samples arrived the day before my marathon travels in January began, and I have not had time to sit down a properly taste/review the wine until now. I have been greatly looking forward to it though!

In addition to a bottle of champagne which I have not yet tasted, I was sent a red Bordeaux from Chateau Larose-Trintaudon from Medoc, France. The 2004 blend was 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot and had a deep purpley color in the glass and on my teeth Perhaps the only downside of my penchant for red wine?

We used the new aerator that I received as a Christmas gift to aerate our glasses of wine and then let them breathe for about 20 minutes before taking a sip. The nose on the wine definitely included hints of tobacco and ripe raspberries. The mouth feel of this wine was like silk, very round and smooth with a nice, long finish, and lingering hints of those berries again. I have to say that I have not tasted many wines from Bordeaux, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed this wine. It was very soft, for lack of another term, and lacked any sharp alcoholic or acidic flavor which was very nice. The label noted that it was aged in 100% French oak which made me worry at first that it would have an oakiness to it which this wine did not have at all.  We drank it with a very creamy brie, and the cheese brought the fruit out of it very nicely. I would drink this with cheese again.

The Life Goes Better with Bordeaux campaign’s website is very interesting and helpful for newbies like me who want to learn about wine and wine regions. They also offer information on food and wine pairings and wines in different price ranges. My absolute favorite part of the site, besides the history of Bordeaux was the “Find your Bordeaux Match” section. You can choose a wine that you are familiar with, like a Napa Cabernet, and they suggest a Bordeaux wine that you might like. This is such a helpful tool, and I know that I will be using it again so that I can discover Bordeaux wines with flavor profiles that might be similar to other wines that I enjoy.

Many, many thanks to the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux for the samples and for opening my eyes to a region I have yet to explore. One I pop open the bubbly, I will be writing about that as well. Until then, enjoy the Life Goes Better with Bordeaux website!

Please don’t forget about my raffle to raise money for The ALLY Foundation! Each entry is a $10 donation on my fundraising page: http://www.firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally. The prize is a $100 gift card to Williams Sonoma! The ALLY Foundation is doing incredible work protecting us from violent sex offenders, and I am proud to be running the 2010 Boston Marathon for them. Anything that you can donate will help!

Technorati Tags: Bordeaux, cheese, wine, wine and food pairing, wine samples, wine tasting