Sip without the snootiness

Over the loungecore set of DJ “Cousin” Roy Gittins, Charles Dixon, a 39-year-old suited movie industry professional, names the No. 1 reason that he’s attending tonight’s Extreme Wine Tasting at the Echo, a venue more known for its electroclash dance nights and faux-mohawked clubgoers than for an event associated with snooty sommeliers.

“It’s an antidote to the very sterile Westside wine tasting,” the London native says. “I appreciate the fact that it’s relaxed, it’s irreverent and it’s a sort of a singles scene.”

There’s still the disco lighting and mirror-paneled walls, but the rough-around-the-edges Echo Park nightclub is gussied up for the occasion. Candles illuminate the white banquettes, and there’s a bouquet of dandelions at every table.

“I wanted to do a wine tasting because it’s weird and fun to have a pretentious event at the Echo, a pretty loose environment,” co-owner Liz Garo says. She recruited a wry British expatriate, Julien Davies, 43, whose resume includes a stint as a writer for Wine.com, to be the host.

Davies has previously been the host of a more strait-laced wine tasting at the Wine House in West L.A. and Santa Monica’s Epicurus. But the Echo’s looser atmosphere allows him to temper his steady stream of information with tidbits on everything from SARS to the palates of the neophytes in the audience. One of his favorites has become a tag line for the event: “After all, is it red wine or white with Orangina?”

This night’s theme is “Fear and Consumption in Vineland, Part 1: Italy,” featuring bottles from five Italian regions. (Previous nights have explored vineyards from France, Spain and California’s Central Coast.). For $15, you’re given tools of the trade: two glasses, a bucket for dumping and spitting, a water jug for rinsing, and a plate of cheese, bread and fruit.

In a black miniskirt, “decantrix” Fran trots out eight vintages, which are poured in pairs and served in four flights. The tasting begins at 8, but attendees, mainly hipsters in their 20s and 30s, filter in within the first 30 minutes.

The crowd is a healthy mix of first-timers and aficionados. “I’ve never been to a formal tasting,” says commercial producer Laura Miller, a chic black-clad, 27-year-old Hollywood resident. “I like wine a lot, but I’m not very well versed in its vocabulary.”

She and her table of young professionals savor two vintages from Sardinia. She adds that they wanted to try the Echo wine night because they were curious about what a formal tasting held at a “dive” bar would be like.

Veteran taster Nick Perry, 39, who’s seated with fellow Londoner Dixon, favorably compares this tasting with ones in his native England, “where the people are serious and they don’t talk,” he says. “This is more laid-back, more relaxed.”

Taking advantage of the romantic atmosphere are couples who are more engrossed with each other than the nuances, say, between a 2001 Promessa Rosso Salento and a 2000 Santa Anastasia Nero d’Avola, from Apuglia and Sicily, respectively.

“We’re having fun,” says Alison Winters, a 22-year-old San Franciscan. “I’m not paying any attention to the wines to be honest.” Her companion, Drew Moss, also 22 and who slightly resembles actor Gael Garcia Bernal, flags down Fran for the evening’s touted “Infinite Refills of America” plan.

By 10, two wines from Piedmont, the last flight, are poured. Mods start arriving for tonight’s club, Shout!, and tasting participants have the option of sticking around.

There are a few minor details that might ruffle the feathers of connoisseurs: the dim lighting, for one, and the din. Now nearing its first anniversary, the popular gathering is the longest-running soiree at the Echo, bringing many repeat visitors such as Andrew Iswarienko, 28, of Echo Park.

“I had a really good time the first time, I’m really into wine and I live around the corner, so I had three reasons to come back,” says the tousle-haired Iswarienko, sporting the graduate-student uniform of a dress shirt with jeans. “I’ve been to wine tastings in a bunch of places -- Santa Barbara County and France -- and this is the most fun.

“It doesn’t have the usual snobbery and terminology and all the stuff you’re supposed to know about but afraid to ask.”

*

Extreme Wine Tasting

What: Fear & Consumption in Vineland, Part 3: Oz (Australia)

Where: The Echo, 1822 Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake

When: June 26, 8-10 p.m.

Cost: $15

Info: garo1echo@earthlink.net