Solune Events

LEARN HOW TO TASTE & EVALUATE WINE THE FUN WAY

with

WINEMAKER & INTERNATIONAL WINE JUDGE JACQUES MERCIER

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

Jacques 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 will have heaters to keep you warm) or the picnic area during the warmer months.

Time/Day:  5pm on selected Saturdays, a perfect start to the rest of your Saturday evening. 

Group Size:  Limited to 18-24 tasters, depending on the available space in the winery at the time of the event.  Based on past response, early registration is highly recommended.

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

Price:  $20 for wine club members and $25 for non-members, payable in advance.

Wines for the selected tasting theme will be provided and included in the price.  Also included will be appetizers paired with the wine tasting theme.

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.

Additional Discounts Offered on Solune Wine Purchases:   During these events, we will extend the half-case discount to individual (1-5) purchases (20% for wine club members and 10% for non-members) and the full case discount to (mixed) half case (6-11) quantities (25% for members and 15% for non-members).

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

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 puzzles concocted by Jacques.  Those of you who were able to best capture the essence of each wine in the appraisal part will have a distinct advantage.  There will be prizes for puzzle winners !

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

This will be a very focused, yet very entertaining event.  Each event will enhance  your wine vocabulary and you will realize that you have a lot more wine tasting skills than you thought you had !

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