People continually ask if, since I am the founder of an online wine company, if I taste wine all the time. Ironically, I don’t think I’ve tasted wine socially - with a group of friends, for the sheer fun of it and self-education - less in the past three years! The Bottlenotes team of course tastes wine frequently but always with an eye toward which boutique and estate wines we would consider carrying in the Bottlenotes portfolio, for marketing via our wine clubs, corporate gifting platform, online wine shop, or our (first national) online wine wedding registry. When not tasting samples with our team, I might be attending a trade tasting, where I’m powering through 20-40 wines in a few hours, or in wine country for a similar purpose. Which is not to say that having founded an online wine company doesn’t have its perks: board meetings are universally followed by the iconic wines of Cakebread Cellars prepared by the winery’s resident chefs; meetings with “suppliers” take place while tasting samples of their wines; half-depleted bottles after such tastings often go home with team members, as is the industry tradition.
Nonetheless, three years into this Silicon-Valley based technology company whose “currency” happens to be wine, I somehow had drifted far away from my original passion and hook into the space: tasting wine with friends. In a casual setting. Over great cheese, in the company of great music, over the course of a few hours, in someone’s home.
This December, when reviewing my litany of other New Year’s resolutions that include the clichéd reinstating yoga into my life on a weekly basis (50% success rate year-to-date), blogging bi-weekly (75% success rate year-to-date), etc., I decided that it was time to reinstate a monthly wine tasting group.
Our kick-off tasting was on Wednesday. I provided all the wine and cheese, though most of the group’s participants were happy to contribute and help conduct the tasting on future evenings.
The night was perfect for a multitude of reasons. It was great to see old friends. It was great to enjoy an evening that was a combination of social catching up and self-education. Since I outsourced the preparation of the event to Bottlenotes.com, I received a “wine tasting kit” in a box, replete with cheese pairing suggestions, pre-printed wine lists, pens, cocktail napkins, and more. Best of all, the wine came too. So literally I popped into my local fromagerie (aka: Whole Foods) for grapes, apples, baguettes, Carrs and cheese, on my way home. Five minutes later I had the oven at 325 degrees to warm the bread, the whites chilling in the fridge and the reds opened to breath. Ten minutes later when the 10 friends arrived, I was totally at ease. Ok, I had a couple early arrivals who helped to pre-pour water and get iTunes going on my laptop. Bottom line: total prep was less than 30 minutes. It was really that easy. The wine lists and pens were on the table; the friends gathered around the living room, we had the bottles there, we read the stories behind each winery and each wine, and three hours later, ended up with a really wonderful kick-off to the year. I am 100% confident that this resolution will be easiest of the three to keep with a 100% hit rate.
Reflecting upon the event, the top five reasons to start a wine tasting group were as follows:
1) Great, casual environment to catch up with friend and colleagues, and to get to know them better
2) Monthly events are totally do-able; more frequent seemed unlikely and less frequent didn’t seem to have the same degree of moment/consistency
3) Perfect excuse to catch up with friends and colleagues socially while peppering the evening with a bit of education
4) 100% of the prep for the tasting notes and wine selection was outsourced - meaning it was something I could fit into my jammed schedule
5) Even if outsourcing the at-home wine tasting experience to someone like Bottlenotes.com, the group could “customize” the journey, deciding whether we wanted to “deep dive” into various wine regions throughout the year, grape varieties, vintage of interest, etc.
The group was pretty flexible, and ultimately left the wine tasting “itinerary” to me. I think for my group, we’ll continue to do varietal spotlights, as we did in the first tasting, where we enjoyed a study in Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah, where we tasted Sauvignon Blancs and Syrahs of the same vintage, from different regions throughout the world, and discussed the differences in terroir of each.
An even easier approach would be to join the Jetsetters wine club by Bottlenotes where we’ll literally send you to a different “region” (country) each tasting, in year one, the “obvious” choices such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Austria, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel/Lebanon, etc. - where we’ll not only send the wines, the wine tasting notes, for each attendee, stemware and pairing recommendations, but we can even make recommendations of books and films from that region if you’d like a broader cultural evening out of it. (Our group decided to elect the Wall Street Journal reporter in attendance to select a short story for each attendee to read in advance of each tasting as a book seemed like overkill but a short story or essay seemed more bite sized.)
Even if you’re not sold on signing up for a Bottlenotes wine club, my top ten recommendations for organizing a monthly wine tasting group are as follows:
1) Set the date and location one month in advance; book people for 90 minutes so they think they can squeeze it into their schedule; they’ll end up staying 2-3 hours. Guaranteed.
2) Invite your 20 favorite wine tasting companions, expecting to get 10 to each tasting
3) Delegate the wine selection (whether outsourced to Bottlenotes.com, your favorite buyer at your local wine shop, your best friend’s wife who’s training for her Master Sommelier exam, etc.) to one group member. 6-7 wines seems to be the max number a small group can enjoy when tasting casually over 2 hours.
4) Delegate the relevant cheese/appetizer acquisition to another attendee
5) Decide if you would like a cultural component for the evening and if so, delegate yet another “cultural curator” for the evening. Again, this is truly optional in my mind; the wine alone can provide ample topic for discussion.
6) Ask the host to be prepared with at least 2 wine glasses per person (for side by side comparison purposes), glasses of water, and spittoons (1 per 3 attendees) for the tasting
7) Pick your favorite album to play in the background so the music is consistent throughout the evening;
8) Start with a half-glass of sparkling wine or the first white as a palate-awakener as everyone arrives
9) Ask people to rate the wines as they taste them, so you can have an active conversation about the merits of each wine, and
10) If you’re inclined to track all that you taste, fax the completed tasting notes to Bottlenotes.com so we can upload the attendees’ ratings to their own online wine cellar - or as of April, you can upload your tasting notes and ratings directly by Bottlenotes Mobile. J
Most of all, we’re happy to help organize your tasting anytime; simply email sommelier@bottlenotes.com for personalized tasting tips.
Lastly, if a whole wine tasting series seems a little intimidating, I recommend picking a regional theme, give a preliminary tasting a go as a trial, and you can always lock in for a multi-event series if it’s a success. Our recommended “test” tasting themes are:
1) New World Stars
2) Tuscan Tour
3) Around the World in 80 Sips™
By and large, our recommendation is to plan on a half-bottle, of 2.5 glasses, per person per tasting. There are roughly 20 one-ounce pours, or 10 2-ounce pours, per bottle.
Alyssa Rapp, F
ounder & CEO of Bottlenotes.com
Author, Bottlenotes Guide to Wine: Around the World in 80 Sips
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