Lexington's private social dining club Camel Club snagged a coveted Wine Spectator Restaurant Award this week, given to restaurants considered among the best for wine, and I nodded, as if knowingly considering a fine vintage. Last month, manager and in-house sommelier Brooks Sherrel let us know of a special edition of the regular weekly wine classes he curates for members.

Intrigued by the fact the club had just passed its one-year anniversary and the wine tasting itself, of course, I RSVPed.

It was my first trip beyond the members-only doors...which is to say I got lost and went in the back. That afforded me a lovely view of the courtyard. Staff and a few members kindly steered me in the right direction through the boho chic, eclectic, luxe spaces in the reinvented Cross Gate Gallery mansion. I found it a good sign that I wasn't met at the door to have my visit managed.

That lack of formality lingered through the evening. After arriving upstairs to the tasting, I chatted with some of the other people taking part. Whatever you imagine the make-up of Camel Club members to be, in this bunch I found a wide range of ages represented, and a mix of couples and friends.

People in upstairs room at tables. — Participants gather for a grand vintage experiment. | LEXtoday

The class that week was a special blind taste testing recreation of the "Judgement of Paris 50th Anniversary." We took on the heroic work of scoring a range of whites and reds that were numbered and which Sherrel poured from bottles concealed by brown bags. The experiment is a version of one that took place in Paris, France, in which California wines won a blind taste test over French wines, an event that turned the wine world upside down.

All this said, Sherrel doesn't see wine as inherently fancy. "It's not about having money or knowledge," he says. "There are great wines at every price. It's about what you like."

Pro tip: I pressed for a recommendation of a summer wine $20 or less that readers could enjoy now + he suggested Aphros' Ten vinho verde (which appears to be available at Total Wine as of this second).

Would the US or France's wines win in Lexington?

We had no way to predict, just to taste, score, guess which country the wines were from, and see how it turned out. So that's what we did.

Ultimately, the US wines won, just as in the original experiment.

It became clear that Sherrel truly loves running wine class and that he'd put much time into preparing the evening. He quipped while pouring and scoring, chatting with members, answering any questions that came up.

Recruited from Blackberry Farm's High Hampton Resort in North Carolina by the Camel Club team, Sherrel says he hasn't gotten a chance to experience much of the city outside the confines of the club yet. But he has a sense of Lexingtonians. "Lexington has set the standard for hospitality among the clientele," he says.

He says the Wine Spectator accolade is for simply offering Lexington what it deserves. "I think we are setting the trend for what Lexington's beverage scene is going to be five or 10 years down the road."

We'll drink to that.

Don't worry, we're working on bringing you glimpses inside Lexington's other members-only clubs. Next up, if all goes to plan, are The Vine and the Melroy.