Too Cute Tuesday: Wine Tasting

Every Tuesday, it’s a craft, a cocktail, and friends. To get in on the fun, check us out on Facebook or read all the posts at www.toocutetuesday.com. Comment, suggest crafts, or start your own TCT chapter. It’s fun!

When my friend Sue said her wine expert friend John would be in town and asked if I’d want to hold a wine tasting/lesson instead of our usual craft format, I knew I’d be crazy to say no. I also knew I’d be doing this writeup on Wednesday.

On my way to Craft Central, my car broke down on the side of the road. I called up and John and Sue’s husband Andrew came and rescued me. They popped open my hood and started talking about belts and fluids. Andrew kept going in his car and getting liquids to pour in and John told me that before becoming a wine person, he was a mechanic. That’s versatility!

After making my car safe enough to drive to my favorite garage, we left it and off we went to Too Cute Tuesday.

At the beginning of the wine tasting, look how excited Sue looks. As the person taking the picture, you can't see that I am also pretty darn excited.

After this incident, John didn’t skip a beat and we all had a great experience. Here’s how you can approximate it without your own car mechanic/wine expert on hand:

Andrew: smelling the bouquet or checking if something is in his drink? When wine and dog ownership intersect...Materials

6 bottles of wine, shoot for the same kind of grape and same year but different regions. We did Cabernet Sauvignon in 2008-2009 vintages from four regions of the world.

Baguette, fancy crackers, and fancy cheeses: both palate cleansers and dinner substitutes.

Ideally one wine glass per wine type per person. Ideally, the same glass size and shape. We only had three per person so we worked with it.

Container for dumping the wine (there is probably a better technical name for this and, while it is sad to throw it out, six people drinking six whole bottles of wine would not have made for a nice Wednesday morning)

Cocktail of the Night: Um… wine!

1. Line up the bottles (don’t tell people prices or specifics).

2. Pour small glass of each wine to excited TCT participants. First smell, then swirl the glass and smell again. Discuss how the smells change.

Marketing Monday: Hulu

Marketing Monday profiles a cool person, website, or business doing more online. Got an idea? Contact me so I can write about it.

People always ask me: How do you get by without cable? I say that my Google Reader keeps me in touch with what’s going on in the blogosphere/pop culture and I listen to NPR for my news. Both of these are true, that’s part of the reason I can go without a cable bill. I do, however, get my television zoning out pleasure courtesy of Hulu.

There is two main ways for media companies to make money online: 1) charge users a fee to access the site or 2) get advertisers to foot the bill and offer the users free access. Hulu has opted for the latter, and may or may not be making enough money to support themselves. Regardless of whether Hulu is turning a profit at the moment though, they are doing interesting things online.

Hulu is having customers chose their viewing experience… and getting customer data in the process.
Several times recently, I was given options for commercials. Did I want to watch a 1 minute 30 second long commercial about Nuvaring before the show began or did I want several shorter commercial breaks? Did I want to watch the stylish, tech, or speed-oriented commercial for Google Chrome? (Part of me also wonders also if there is some ad targeting going on based on my age, sex, and other demographics.)

Need marketing help?

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