Santa Barbara Treasure Goes Up in Smoke Via Live Twitter Tasting

I admit, I'm not as diligent about my Twitter postings as I am with my Facebook entries, but I do enjoy a spirited series of Tweets if I'm talking wine.

Which is why the concept of the recent 'Pinot Twitter Tasting and Smackdown' was so appealing to me. This two-hour event brought Pinot-lovers from all over the world together for a virtual tasting and Tweetfest about this most fickle grape. '#PinotNoir' had to be included with each post and to vote for a specific region, you added another two-character hashtag (#SRH for mine because it was from the Santa Rita Hills Appelation).

For this special occasion, I had the extreme pleasure of sipping a 2004 Sea Smoke Southing Pinot, a generous gift I'd received just that morning from a thoughtful co-worker. This wine is the stuff that dreams are made of-spicy, dark in color, full of cherries and eucalyptus and smooth as a baby's behind. It made me wanna skip down a wooded path as I sang Sunshine on My Shoulders. Other Twitter folk were just as enthusiastic about their Pinot picks: 

As it turns out, there were more than 2,000 Tweets during the event, with Oregon's Willamette Valley coming away with the Smackdown Award for most Tweets. Winning and losing aside, I'm looking forward to the next Twitter tasting-and to treasured bottles of wine that seem to go up in Smoke before my very eyes... 

Follow me on Twitter @VinoChick75 and at mydesert.com/VinoChick