The Wine Education Sessions Offered

Choose from any of the sessions offered below, or we can customize a program to meet your restaurant or hotel needs. Every training opportunity is designed just for you.

Education and Consulting Fees Available Upon Request*

The ‘Popcork’ Experience™: Exploring Food & Wine Pairing

This fun, interactive food and wine pairing education focuses on how to analyze and taste different wines while pairing them with different flavors of popcorn.

Key takeaways:

Enhance the understanding of food and wine pairing.
Allows any caterer or food professional to be more comfortable suggesting wines with food.
Increase overall wine sales.

Sensory Evaluation – Understanding Wine: One session - Two Parts

Part 1: The Palate Calibration Exercise
During this interactive session we break down a bottle of wine and taste through the structural components while discussing how important they are to the tasting process and in learning how to describe wine.

Key takeaways:

Learn where and how the structural components fall on the palate during the tasting process.
Learn how each component offers balance in wine.
Learn where they come from and why they are so important to understanding wine.

Part 2: Wine Aroma Identification Training: The Aroma Wheel Seminar
Aromas in wine are a key component in the tasting process.

Using the Ann C. Noble Aroma Wheel as our guide this team exercise is about how to identify specific aromas in wine.

Key takeaways:

Learn how to identify specific aromas in different wines.
Learn about where the aromas come from.
This session brings it all together when evaluating a wine from start to finish.

Pouring For Profit: Maximizing Beverage Revenue in Catering

This session is designed specifically for the hotel catering and event sales professional who wants to learn how to increase their wine sales by translating current beverage trends into sales. We look at why we should sell more beverage in catering, the tools to sell successfully, we take a look at the numbers and evaluate the Return On Investment.

Key takeaways:

Learn how to sell to today’s ‘Big Six’ categories of consumers of beverage alcohol.
Learn how to translate current beverage trends into sales.
Learn about creative beverage marketing and execution unique to each property.

A Greener Vision: How to Incorporate ‘Green’ into Your Beverage Program

With the world moving toward ‘green’ and a focus on sustainability we show you how to incorporate environmentally friendly wines and spirits into your beverage program for restaurants and catering.
We will navigate through the variety of terms and farming practices and discuss ways to market the green brands on your beverage lists.
Includes a tasting of your choice of sustainable, certified organic and biodynamic wines or spirits.

Key takeaways:

Learn a variety of ways a wine or spirit can be certified ‘green’.
Develop a ‘green’ wine and cocktails program unique to you and your company’s values.
Increase consumer awareness & sales through creative marketing of the green brands on your wine or cocktail list.

Red Wine Blending Seminar: Learning how to blend red wine varietals

During this session you will have the opportunity to blend a Bordeaux or Rhone style wine.

Taste through the single varietal wines first to understand their unique quality and benefits.

Then learn the unique artistry and benefits of blending those single varietals while learning what each brings to the party.

Make your own red blend and bottle it with a label you have created!

Wine And Cheese Pairing Wheel

This classic, popular food and wine pair can be tricky to do well! Learn the nuances of wine and cheese pairing by tasting through a variety of white and red wines along with a variety of international cheeses.

OTHER SESSIONS

Wine 101: The basics of wine
The wine regions of California
The wines of Oregon and Washington State
The wines of France
The wines of South America: Chile and Argentina
The wines of Australia and New Zealand
Spirits 101: The world of spirits