GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Happy news on the wine-tasting front: I’ll be giving two evening sessions in the near future, in English, for those who want to learn more about Swiss wines.
The first is at the Arvinis wine fair where I’ll be running an introduction to wine-tasting session with five Swiss wines and one from Lebanon, the guest of honour at the 2013 fair. We’ll concentrate on the basics – this is for beginners – and I’ll give you some tips for how to visit stands that offer a total of 2,500 wines – how to taste wine, remain standing and better yet, remember what you liked!
I did this last year, but this year I’ll be changing the format a bit, based on feedback from the 25 people I had for the session, and I think you’ll find it fun and a great way to prepare for the rest of the evening.
Cost of the session: CHF35 (entry to Arvinis, also CHF35, which gives you a glass for tasting at all the stands)
Date: 19 April, from 18:00-19:00. Register online and sign up in advance; last year, the first year it was offered, the English class was sold out.
Women only wine-tasting
Roses: beautiful to look at and doubly wonderful when we find their scent in our wine!The second is a very special new tasting session, just for women, which I’m developing with Les Sens Lémanique in Vinzel, and I’m quite excited about it. Women are known in the wine industry to have more perceptive noses than men, but women also tend to take a back seat at tasting sessions, so this is your opportunity to feel more at ease and say what you really think you’re smelling and tasting.
Beginners and women who are familiar with wine-tasting techniques but who want to develop their ability to appreciate wines’ finer points are both welcome.
“Summer blooms, flowers in our wines” will help us focus on what the pros are talking about when they say wines have floral notes. There is room for just 15 of us, making it an intimate session with a chance to really discuss what we’re learning, a key to better understanding wine.
Here’s the description from the web site of Les Sens Lémaniques, which has a growing variety of special courses; register on the site:
“Summer blooms, flowers in our wines”Learning to use your nose to appreciate wines: a small group of women will spend an evening celebrating Spring and exploring floral notes found in Swiss wines – rose, violet, wisteria, etc. – to better understand the basics of wine tasting and to learn more about excellent wines produced here. The emphasis will be on wines from French-speaking Switzerland, tasting 6 wines. We’ll work with bottled smells and real flowers to first identify floral smells in nature and extracts, then move on to the wines and briefly discuss the four main olfactory groups found in wines: vegetable, mineral, animal and empyreumatic (grilled, toasted notes), and how we go from these to some 500 aromatic substances, including floral notes.Wine-tasting presented by Ellen Wallace, editor of GenevaLunch.com online news media, whose blog “Among the Vines” appears on the site. She is also responsible for the English version of the Vinea Swiss Wines app for iPhone and android, the multi-language definitive guide to top Swiss wineries.Date: Tuesday 4 June 2013, from 18.30 – 20.00 (Length 1-1/2 hours)Price: CHF 80.00