Solune Events

LEARN HOW TO TASTE & EVALUATE WINE THE FUN WAY

with

WINEMAKER & INTERNATIONAL WINE JUDGE JACQUES MERCIER

Solune is pleased to offer Tasting Challenge Nites to the extended Solune family.

(formerly know as Tasting Puzzle Nites) 

Jacques, Solune's winemaker, will lead each event and you will get the full benefit of his winemaking and judging expertise.  He is a certified sommelier and a trained wine judge (American Wine Society and CA State Fair certified).  He has judged at many local, state, national and international (France, Spain, Argentina, Switzerland, Canada, etc.) wine competitions and has led numerous formal and informal wine tasting gatherings.  One of his very favorite things to do is to just sit down with other wine lovers, enjoy wine and chat about it !

Place:  Solune winery building during the cooler months (and yes, we have heaters to keep you warm, but dress warmly) or the picnic area during the warmer months.

Time/Day:  Late afternoon or early evening on selected Saturdays or Sundays, a perfect start to the rest of your evening. 

Group Size:  Limited to 18-22 tasters, depending on the available space in the winery at the time of the event.  Based on past response, early registration is highly recommended (all past events have been sold-out soon after the announcement).

Tasting Theme:  For each event, a pre-selected tasting theme will be set in advance.

Price (payable in advance):  $20 for wine club members and non-member groups of 10 and more, and $25 for individual non-members.  If non-members join the wine club at the event, they will receive a $5 discount towards wine purchases for that evening.  Wines for the selected tasting theme will be provided and are included in the price.  Also included will be appetizers paired with the wine tasting theme.

Additional Discounts Offered on Solune Wine Purchases:  During these events, we will extend our standard half-case discount (20% for wine club members and 10% for non-members) down to individual purchase quantities (less than 5) and the full case discount (25% for members and 15% for non-members) down to half case quantities (6 and more). 

In addition, for each wine club member individual/couple inviting one non-member guest individual/couple, the following will apply:  If the guest(s) join(s) the wine club at the event, both the guest individual/couple and the sponsor will receive a $5 discount towards wine purchases for that evening.

What to Bring:  Your learning curiosity, including any wine questions you might have or any wine you want Jacques to give you feedback on, or wine-food matching advice for your next dinner party.

Typical Event Program:

Note:  This is meant to be a relaxed and fun event.  Wine snobbery not allowed !

The first part of each event will be an overview of how to profile a wine using a method devised by Jacques.  He will go over the various components of a wine which gives it its distinct “personality”, allowing you to compare/contrast it to other wines.  Characteristics of the selected tasting theme for the event will be highlighted.

In the second part, you will develop your practical wine profiling skills by applying what you learned in the first part, to a flight of the theme wines.  Again, emphasis will be on developing your ability to characterize a wine rather than scoring it or getting it “right” or “wrong”.  The challenge will be to identify, for each wine, a few distinctive features allowing you to differentiate them from each other, as well as to take structured notes for future reference (see next part).

In the third part, the wine profiles you developed in the second part will be used in tasting exercizes concocted by Jacques.  Those of you who were able to best capture the essence of each wine in the previous appraisal part will have a distinct advantage. 

Prizes will be offered to tasters who do best (a good sense of observation and deductive reasoning is more important to do well here than comprehensive tasting experience).

Finally, we will provide wine & food matching tips for the selected tasting theme.

This is a very focused (i.e., some "work" involved), yet very entertaining evening.  Your wine vocabulary will be enhanced and you will realize that you have a lot more wine tasting skills than you realized you had !  It is not unusual for relatively inexperienced tasters to do as well or even better than more experienced tasters in this event.

Private & Professional Groups:  Jacques is also available to customize/lead similar events at your location.  Call us or email us to make arrangements.

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