At Taste & Compare we specialize in creating customized wine, spirits and food classes geared around your interests for private parties, corporate team building programs, or hospitality staff training. Here are some examples- or let us plan a class specifically for your group!
Taste & Compare: Identifying the Basic Wine Varieties
The only infallible way to learn about wine is by tasting it, then comparing one wine against another. Not just sipping a glass here and there, but by focusing on it. The best way to focus is to remove all your preconceptions, and force yourself to start at GO. In this program you’ll taste fourteen wines. You won’t know what the variety is, where it comes from, who made it, or how much it costs. But we confidently predict…You’ll figure all that out on your own (with a little guidance) as you go along. By tasting and comparing. And isn’t that the best way to learn about wine?
Taste & Compare: Defining the Basic Taste Elements
People throw around an awful lot of strange descriptors about wine, don't they? We'll help you cut through all that and set up your own personal taste descriptors to describe the wine you're tasting. And we'll do it by putting several different wines in front of you---blind---and figuring out what they are by the basic taste elements you'll learn.
Old Word vs New World: What Are the Differences?
You've heard about "Old World" and "New World" wines? Maybe you didn't know the difference, or were a little shy to ask. Here you learn about the basic differences between the two---then taste examples of each. Burgundy vs. California Chardonnay? Australian Shiraz vs. Rhone Valley Syrah? We'll cover them, by tasting and comparing !
Global Wine Seminars & Tastings
Intense, focused blind tastings on specific varieties or types, designed to showcase the variations of terroir and the human element on the expressions of a grape’s style.
Global Wine Seminars include any region in the wide world of wine, including but not limited to: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio, Gewurztraminer, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah/Shiraz, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux-style Blends, and Rhone-Style Blends
Global Wine Seminars include any region in the wide world of wine, including but not limited to: Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio, Gewurztraminer, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah/Shiraz, Zinfandel, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Bordeaux-style Blends, and Rhone-Style Blends
Virtual Wine Tours
A series of pictorial presentations and narration, supported by tastings, designed to illuminate major wine regions of the world
Virtual Wine Tours include, but are not limited to:
North America (Napa, Sonoma, California Central Coast, the Sierra Foothills, France (Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Champagne, Alsace...), Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Argentina/Chile and Australia/New Zealand.
Virtual Wine Tours include, but are not limited to:
North America (Napa, Sonoma, California Central Coast, the Sierra Foothills, France (Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Champagne, Alsace...), Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Austria, Argentina/Chile and Australia/New Zealand.
Red Wine & Chocolate
It’s one of those combinations that few people can resist trying—Red Wine and Chocolates. But what chocolate…and what red wine? Explore the taste possibilities; find out what works well and what doesn’t work at all with this ultimately sinful chocolate and wine pairing.
Creative Crostini!
Designed by a Chef, this is an innovative “hands on” way of looking at the intricacies of food and wine pairing. Participants are given plates of crostini toasts, basic sauces, a “Palette of Flavors”, and four different types of wine. Each person gets to create their own crostini, and choose a wine to match it! (Then, naturally, they have to explain why.) Who says learning can't be a whole lot of fun?
Basic Principles of Food & Wine Pairing
Noted Chef, Restaurant Consultant, Radio Host, Columnist, and James Beard Award Winning Cookbook author, John Ash, has designed a comprehensive Food & Wine Pairing Exercise created to explore the many possible combinations of basic foods and flavors with the predominant styles of wine.
Sauces & Wine Pairing
Taste four sauces created by a James Beard Award-winning chef for this seminar, and compare each against four different types of wines to discover the fundamentals of wine and food pairing with your own taste buds. In this novel approach, no one tells you what is “correct”; only you can determine that for yourself!