The site's all about event programming. Drollett is pulling in hosts from the wine blog world to lead the online tastings. He told me it is more about building on online community of tasters than marketing his own wine shop. Knowledgeable wine makers and distributors also act as hosts on Twitter Taste Live. The events uncork at a prearranged time (the next one is Dec. 13, at 8 p.m.).

All you need is a free account through Twitter to participate -- and a few bottles of wine. "Tweeters" type in their impressions of the wine, in 140 characters or less, and then add the hashtag "#TTL" to each Tweet. That allows the Twitter Taste Live Website to pull each of the participants' comments into their own customized feed. So you can kick back and watch what everyone else thinks of the wine, along with expert commentary from the host.

"There's always been a separation between people producing wines and people tasting wines," said Drollett. Twitter Taste Live is his attempt to connect consumers directly with the industry pros, the winemakers and others who know the most about wines, he said. "It's not about selling wine. It's about taking the relationships on both sides of the fence and bringing them together."

For their last online tasting, Drollett said they had participants from 12 countries, including China. He recommends participating in the event with a small group of friends, maybe gathered around a dining room table with a laptop and tasting the wines during one of their events. Even people who go out to dinner and order one of the wines the site happens to be tasting are encouraged to text their impressions of it with their cellphones.

"Nobody wants to be sitting in their basement in their underwear tasting wine alone," Drollett said.

Um, what's wrong with drinking in your underwear? ;-)