Rieslings and Gewürztraminers (photo: Katie White/PRK)

Call me crazy, even out of touch, but I associate wine with rolling hills and dusty cellars instead of modern technology.

However, at Wine Riot Boston, last weekend’s three-day wine tasting party at the Park Plaza Castle, photo booth flashes, a DJ and even a Smartphone app were artfully paired with reds and whites from around the globe.

Wine Riot is one of several events hosted by California-based organization Second Glass, which welcomes those intimidated by the complexities of wine to taste and learn in a fun, relaxed environment. And by fun, I mean carnival-like fun. There were blue and white awnings, tall stilt-like signs highlighting the region in which you were presently immersed (South Africa? Oregon? Bordeaux?), neon signs, local food vendors — e.g., Upper Crust Pizzeria and Cow & Crumb Baking Company — and even a fake tattoo stand. All of these ringed the room, providing respite from the Riojas.

Attendees, mostly in their twenties and thirties, could hop from one continent to another or spend half an hour in the Loire Valley (like this girl here), sipping and chatting with different wineries. (Tyler Balliet, Second Glass president and co-founder, encouraged the “unexpected questions”– even ones as simple as ‘What is Burgundy?’). In the Loire, I tasted Muscadet-Sèvre et Maine for the first time–a dry white described by my host as “the perfect wine for oysters.” It was silky and cool. I closed my eyes mid-Riot and envisioned myself 3,500 miles away on a French riverbank, toes-in-the-sand, glass-in-hand.

To track the dizzying impressive number of wines there for the tasting, Second Glass developed a mobile app that allows you to “like” or “meh” what you’ve tried — clear reminders if all else becomes blurry.

Second Glass is also committed to supporting local producers, and Massachusetts and New England wineries were well represented. Maine Mead Works, Travessia, Westport Rivers Winery and Farnum Hill Ciders all had waiting lines throughout the evening. To my surprise, Tyler Balliet championed these hardy New Englanders, even compared with sun-drenched Sonoma Cabernets. He strongly suggested I attend a workshop later that evening hosted by Westport Rivers’ winemaker Bill Russell, which turned out to be a blind tasting of Dom Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot and Westport River’s own Brut. To illustrate the range of attendees that evening: when Bill asked the audience which of the three wines we believed was most expensive, the crowd split nearly 30/30/30. Coupled with the bubbly were jokes Bill downloaded for the presentation on his Smartphone.

Wine Riot hits D.C. next, followed by Chicago, Austin and San Francisco through the summer. With this traveling wine-show, there’s a lot to “like.”