Noble Rot Wine EventIn the genteel world of wine tastings, with its attendant slurping and ridiculous flavor claims (really, gasoline?), you're not often told to "shut the f**k up," especially by the host. But at one of Jonny "Cigar" Cristaldi and Brian Quinn's Noble Rot underground wine events, a few well-placed epithets are sometimes needed to quiet the rowdy crowd, since no one here is spitting.

Cristaldi, a stage performer and "self-appointed master sommelier," and Quinn, a jazz drummer who manages musical acts, founded Noble Rot in July 2009 after meeting at Williamsburg's Whisk & Ladle supper-club events.

"Our early discussions were [about] how can we elevate the wine tasting to a social, interactive level?" explains Cristaldi. "We were like, 'How are we going to throw some parties where people are going to have a fun time and learn something about wine?'"

Although in the beginning, says Quinn, "Sometimes we noticed some of them would get a little sloshed at times."

Noble Rot takes wine tasting out of its natural element, the hushed room full of tweed-suited "experts" swirling and pontificating, and puts it on a rooftop in Greenpoint with a bluegrass band (their first event). Cristaldi and Quinn have also hosted an evening of sake in a Williamsburg loft, Rioja at a Park Slope home, and kosher wines at New York Vintners. Then there was that champagne event in a Waldorf-Astoria suite.

Says Quinn, "Jon was sitting in the room at one point with 30 women and just him, saying, 'Don't worry, there are men coming.'" As both of them pointed out, Noble Rot events are predominately attended by young women.

And that was true of the latest one, an evening on New Zealand's micro-climates with Man O' War wine in a bachelor-pad Bond St. apartment. As the crowd of attractive 20- and 30-somethings filed in, Cristaldi donned his Shriners-logo-emblazoned tux jacket and went to work.

While Man O' War's comely events manager, Bronwyn Skuse, introduced the wine, members of Brooklyn's A Razor, A Shiny Knife prepared hors d'oeuvres pairings of smoked lamb (from Brooklyn's Meat Hook) and poached yellowfin tuna. Cristaldi humorously bantered with Skuse, and Quinn played the straight man. But soon after the Blonde Redhead–esque Miwa Gemini played it was hard to tell where the wine education ended and the house party began.

We asked one of the evening's attendees, Josh (no last name given), what it is about wine that typically makes guys chafe. "I think there's a lot of pomp and circumstance around wine that turns people off," he said. "So when you make it a little more casual they really enjoy it."

He then added, "It's a great way to meet girls."