Tips for starting your own wine tasting club. Lessons from three years of Winer Things.
Why drink one wine when you can drink 20?
To be honest, when we started Winer Things, I was looking to subsidize my wine drinking. Alone, I can drink half a bottle, but with ten people, we can try 5 to 20 wines! That’s why, when I heard a voice behind me at a Total Wine Tasting say, “We should just start our own tasting group so we can drink more expensive wines.", I whipped my head around and immediately asked for her number. Her name was May and she became one of the founding members of Winer Things.
Start Simple
Our first tasting was simple. Nine people—consisting of old friends, May, and new friends we
met at a Jersey City Wine Tasting (the wines were HORRIBLE, but we met people who would come to be our best friends). The wine theme? BYOB of a bottle that you’d like to share with the group. The first tasting was long, maybe four hours. Some of us had better palates than others, we didn’t know what we were doing, and we had so much fun.
Looking back, that’s one of the biggest lesson we’ve learned. Throughout the three years, we’ve tried so many formats, some more successful than others, asked for feedback, and adjusted in response. Don’t wait until you have the perfect wine list, know everything about the topic you’re presenting, or have a perfect group of knowledgeable wine drinkers. Everything comes with time, and if you host every month or every quarter, you’ll quickly find what works and what doesn’t.
Tasting Formats
For nearly three years, every tasting was a sit-down tasting, which works well for education. We had a powerpoint, structured flights, and two wine glasses per person. Everyone moved through the wines together, discussions stayed focused, and presentations were easy to follow.
But, I kept dreaming of doing my own walkaround tasting, inspired by the ones I attended hosted by James Suckling, and Gary’s Wine & Marketplace. Three months ago, I had the perfect theme, NJ vs. France. 20 wines, half from NJ grown grapes, half from France, all blind. The goal? Figure out which is which and tell me which you prefer. Spoiler: none of us could figure it out, but France did slightly outperform overall.
Our first walk-around proved to be a success! People naturally mixed between groups instead of staying in their seats and talking to only those near them. Friends who normally sat on opposite sides of the room suddenly spent half the afternoon talking. Setup and cleanup were easier for us, and the atmosphere was more relaxed. Going forward, we’ll probably split the tastings between sit down and walkaround for a mix of education and to maximize socialization.
Let your members shape your club
I am grateful to have friends who contribute to shaping the club to what it is today.
One member, Mark (we first invited Mark and his wife Ida to Winer Things when they gave us their old wine fridge), has presented two incredible tastings, including an Iberian Peninsula Shoot-Out exploring Spanish and Portuguese wines. His Zinfandel tasting showcased the range possible with the grape, as we tried delicious white Zins, carbonic fermentation versions, old world vs new world, aged Zins, and an indigenous clone uprooted from Croatia and grown in California (Ridge Tribidrag).
Another member, Young, presented one of the most memorable Winer Things tasting when he brought 34 wines for 32 attendees. The theme was Art of Cellaring, and all wine pairs/triplets were verticals (same wine, different vintage). The first time I went to an Essex Wine Society tasting, it was also Young’s first tasting. I found him intimidating at first, but he has since become a beloved Winer Things member.
Many other members bring snacks and food pairings. May is the queen of pairings and will design appetizers to go with each theme. At the New Zealand tasting, I learned that I’m obsessed with Marmite.
Tasting Suggestions
The Winer Things club became something I never expected. At first, it was simply a way to drink better wine amongst friends. Somewhere along the way, it became a creative outlet. Back in college, I wanted to design experiences, specifically, in VR. It was collaboration, iteration, coding, and 3D modeling. Bringing a similar workflow to the Winer Things, every tasting became an opportunity to experiment. How can we make blind tastings more fun? Can we gamify wine to make it more interactive? How can we get people talking, not just about the wine, but with each other?
We’ve done blind tastings where for each answer you get right, you get a raffle ticket. The winner at the end of the night gets a sommelier-themed grape pin.
Our most recent tasting was a walkaround of cheap vs. expensive wines, all presented blind. Everyone got fake $100 bills and placed them on the wines they thought were the most expensive (spoiler, we were totally wrong for whites and old world reds. The white wine winner was a $11 Vinho Verde).
Our Lord of the Rings themed New Zealand Tasting had wines presented blind. We had Lord of the Rings miniatures that each person could decorate with markers and glitter for a LOTR board game. For each question you got right, you move your game piece closer to Mordor.
It’s your club! Do whatever you want! (That’s what I tell myself haha…)
A few practical tips
If you’re thinking about starting your own wine club, here’s what’s worked for us:
Start with a simple BYOB tasting before investing in elaborate themes.
Split wine costs evenly so everyone gets to experience bottles they might not normally buy. One person buys all the wine, and we split it.
We aim for 10-20 wines for groups of about 24 people. Less for a sitdown, more for a walkaround. I understand that we are on the aggressive side for wine quantity. 4-8 wines might work better for your group.
Walkaround tastings shine in larger groups while seated tastings shine when you want deeper discussion. If you can, try both.
When MC-ing the tastings, try your best to make everyone feel included. Encourage people to share their opinions on the wine-it’s subjective, after all! Make an effort to introduce new attendees to the rest of group. That’s what makes people excited to come back.
When recruiting new members, if you meet someone that you vibe with, just invite them! For me, it’s been a great excuse to get to know someone better. If they vibe with you, they will probably vibe with the rest of your group.
Three Years Later
Looking back, I was trying to create a tasting group so I could drink more wine. Instead, we accidentally built a community. Now we have offshoot groups, like Chateau Asian Test Kitchen, where a handful of foodies try Asian recipes (we are terrible at hand pulling noodles, and useless at making bao buns). We’ve hosted sake and sushi nights, restaurant field trips, countless dinners, and gone on vacations together.
In the end, wine gave us a reason to gather, and everything else, the friendships, the traditions, the conversations, is what made people stay.
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