One of the questions we get most often is how to plan a wine tasting.
But the problem is our best answer is always, “It depends.”
See, whether you’re planning a public, ticketed wine tasting as a fundraiser for your favorite non-profit or an intimate home wine tasting for your closest friends, how to plan it depends on one crucial question: What do you want the tasting to be like?
Do you want it to be educational – where you learn about the wines of a certain region or explore a certain type of wine? Do you want it to be a tasting where you discover value wines – wines that taste like they cost $20, but are priced less than $10? Do you want a tasting that matches wines to foods, like a wine and cheese tasting or one that goes with a meal? Do you want to do it yourself or hire a consultant?
Whether you hire a consultant or go on your own, you can’t plan the tasting until you know the answer to that first question – What do you want the tasting to be like?
It’s a question we’ve been fortunate to answer quite a bit lately, as we’ve been asked to help plan a couple of tastings being held as fundraisers. In these instances, the biggest piece of advice we’ve given has been to avoid what most fund- raising tastings do.
At most big, ticketed tastings to raise money for a great cause, the wines are donated by the distributors. So at a big tasting, with multiple distributors involved, you’ll have different distributors pouring wines at different tables.
The problem that creates is the distributors, understandably, want to showcase their own wines and they want to showcase only certain wines within their portfolios. So you’ll have one table with a chardonnay, a merlot, a riesling and two sparkling wines. Then the next table will have a different chardonnay, a merlot blend, a Gewürztraminer and a sweet red. Multiply that by 10 tables or more and the result is a wine chaos for your palate – there could be 10 or 11 different chardonnays at 10 different tables.
We would much rather see all the sweet wines together, all the sparkling wines together, all the merlots together and so on. But what distributor is going to let their sparkling wine be not only right next to a competitor’s, but maybe even poured by them? The point, after all – besides the charitable cause – is to introduce wines to people who will want to buy them. We can understand that. But we’ve also discovered that some distributors are hearing what we’re saying, and seem open to the idea, if only to give it a try.
Of course, that’s what makes a home tasting so great. You’re not at the mercy of anyone, you can decide exactly how you want the tasting to be and make the experience your very own. And that, of course, is just as fun as going out to a tasting.
‘Picked by the Pros’
Speaking of tastings, one of our favorite tastings of the year is seeing some radical change this year. The Northeast Indiana Public Radio tasting is set for June 19 and unlike the giant tastings in the past, this one is going to be much more intimate.
Gone are the dozens of tables filled with hundreds of wines, which, frankly, got to be overwhelming for everyone involved.
This year, the focus of the event is a wine dinner. The “Picked by the Pros” dinner will feature your favorite wine columnists (that would be us) leading you through an amazing seven-course meal from Club Soda, paired with wines that we helped choose. These wines take a break from the typical chardonnays and merlots and invite you to expand your palate.
Before dinner, Jeff Armstrong from WineTime will have a small tasting of what we expect to be a delicious variety of wines. Jeff asks distributors to do exactly what we’re talking about when he hosts a wine tasting. They don’t bring the same-old, same-old to his tastings; they bring wines they’re excited about and wines they think you will be excited about.
The pre-dinner tasting starts at 4:30 p.m. with dinner served at 6 p.m. at Arts United Center, 303 E. Main St. Another change this year is the radio station is partnering with Arts United. So proceeds benefit public radio as well as the local arts.
What could be better than that? You will have a chance to support some of your favorite causes while learning about and enjoying some fabulous wines.
There will also be an all wine-related silent auction, which features some interesting items, including a wine trip, wine from Indiana wineries, wine glasses and other items.
Tickets for the dinner are $125 each or $800 for a table of eight and are available online at www.nipr.fm or by calling 260-452-1189.
So how did we get involved in this tasting?
Well, in addition to us being huge fans of NIPR, Krista serves on the board of trustees.
We hope to see you there.
Cheers!
