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The Essentials of Wine – Class to be a better wine consumer
September 12, 2023 @ 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
| $350
The Essentials of Wine – Bonde’s Five Class Series
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The Essentials of Wine – Bonde’s Five Class Series
Five Tuesdays: September 12, 19, 26 and October 3, 10
This is where beginners become wise and savvy wine consumers! These sessions are designed to instill confidence in understanding wine and all aspects surrounding it, from vocabulary to pairing to service and buying and beyond. No prior knowledge needed, just an enthusiastic interest in wine!
This five-class series is designed for the real world. You’ll gain the practical knowledge and confidence to be a better consumer, host, and wine lover. Our classes focus on understanding and selecting wine, tapping into one’s personal taste, learning how to pair food and wine, and more. Hosted by internationally renowned sommelier Bertil Jean-Chronberg in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, the class size is limited to up to eight participants.
Educational material, wine samplings and a light snack are included for $350+ per person for the whole series.
Classes are held select Tuesday evenings from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m.
Class Topics
Week 1: How wine is made and how to recognize the different styles of wine
Week 2: How to learn to taste wine and why
Week 3: How to serve wine, including temperature, glassware, decanting
Week 4: How to store wine, and the five essentials you need to have at home
Week 5: How to read and order wine at the store or at the restaurant
NOTE: Due to our small capacity, any cancellations made less than 48 hours in advance are non-refundable. Please email us if you have any questions.
Class Descriptions
Week 1: How wine is made and how to recognize the different styles of wine
You may think this one’s obvious, but we’ll go way deeper in depth than just grape color. In this class you’ll learn the basics of winemaking, including the reasons you can make a white wine from red grapes, and orange wine from white grapes, an “orange” wine that’s white, and a whole spectrum of pink depending on vinification. This will also demystify the difference between “natural wines” and “natural winemaking”, a topic that is not only very on-trend in the wine world, but integral to the ethos of our shop.
Week 2: How to learn to taste wine and why
Sure, there’s practically a whole separate dictionary you could get just for wine descriptions—but we’re not about that. This class will give an overview of the physiology of taste, and go through how to properly taste a wine, explaining in detail the steps of tasting a wine (swirling, sniffing, aerating, etc.). This class will also help you understand why you might like certain wines but not others. At the end, you’ll understand the reasons and mechanisms of why we taste, as well as be able to better communicate your wine preferences when you’re out at bars, restaurants, and wine shops.
Week 3: How to serve wine, including temperature, glassware, decanting
In the third week, we’ll learn about why different wines require different temperatures, and the best way to serve them. We’ll go over the logic of the morphology of glassware—from skinny Champagne flutes to fat Burgundy glasses, and set the record straight on a carafing vs. decanting, and which wines even need these extra steps. Keeping with the theme of the course, we’ll underscore the mechanisms behind it all, so you don’t just learn how to do it, but why.
Week 4: How to store wine, and the five essentials you need to have at home
When should a wine be cellared, and when can you just throw it in your fridge? Can it be upright or on its side? And how do you safely preserve an unfinished bottle so it’s just as good days, or even months, later? These are just a few of the questions we’ll answer in this class. Learning how to properly store and serve wine lets you get the best quality out of your wine purchases, and learning how to preserve for more than a day of drinking means you can buy better wine without worrying it will go to waste. Plus, we’ll go through some of the various contraptions you may have seen on our accessory table or in the cabinets, and which ones you need and which would just be fun to have.
Week 5: How to read and order wine at the store or at the restaurant
Finally, in the last class we cover how to talk about wine out there, whether it be at a store or a restaurant. We’ll go over how to read a wine menu or navigate a wine store. And, you’ll learn to talk about the wine you like and want, so you can be sure to get a wine you like, even if you don’t get to taste it ahead of time (like you do at our shop). You’ll also learn to suss out quality, so you can tell when something is—or isn’t—worth the price.
