Report from our latest #hftott TweetUp: Wine with Rob Beardall
Posted In: Me | Wine May 1st, 2013 divider No Comments »We had one of our funnest (yes it’s a word) TweetUp this week with a special wine-themed one on Tuesday night. We were hosted upstairs in the Guest Room by the good folks at Fresco Bistro Italiano. We laughed, we drank some wine and we raised some money for a great local cause.
The special guest speaker was Rob Beardall, sommelier and the single largest private wine distributor in Ottawa. He tastes wines and sells them to all the great local restaurants for a living. You could tell he’s passionate about wine and he entertained and answered all sorts of questions along the way!
Rob spoke about the health benefits of wine before including:
- First and foremost, medical benefits of wine have to do with moderate consumption
- Wine pairings, as opposed to beer or hard liquor, are usually with healthier foods
- So-called “French Paradox” (look it up)
- Psychological health benefits, mostly with the social aspect.
- And according to Wikipedia, it’s the world’s oldest documented man-made medicine!
He then took us through three amazing wine pairings:
- Sauvignon Blanc with goat’s cheese crostini
- Chianti with homemade veal meatball in tomato sauce
- Ripasso with an aged cheddar crostini
Yummy and fun. How could you go wrong? We might have to do another one of these…
Also, I’m trying to do some good as well with these events so the proceeds went to a local charity picked by the participants. SchoolBOX won in a very close vote over D.I.F.D., the Ottawa Food Bank and Christie Lake Kids to pick up a donation of just over $150. Thank you to all who registered for that!
Stay tuned for details of the next TweetUp at the end of the month. We will be hosting Canmore’s Simon Donato, champion ultramarathoner, star of Travel+Escape’s Boundless and founder of Stoked Oats.
***
It’s not always about unicorns and the Care Bears when it comes to running. A great look at the dark side of running in a recent Running Times blog entry: Ten Things I Hate (About Running).
Maybe he just needed more wine?