Wine Tastings Loosen Up

Great New York Times article about new trends in wine tasting.

Andrew Sia wanted to find a sommelier who would lecture to his wine tasting club, but was not sure he could afford it. Then there was the matter of the ice cream.

In addition to enjoying wine, Mr. Sia, 34, fancies making his own frozen sorbets and ice creams. Though it seemed to him a natural fit to pair the two, he suspected a wine consultant might not agree.

“Our first concern was that it was going to be stuffy,” Mr. Sia said. “We wanted this to be more of a party.”

This is exactly the approach I'm taking with the Tastings part of my Tammy's Tastings business. It's not about being a food snob, it's about having fun. One idea I can't wait to try with someone is to do a bunch of blind taste-offs. Like the old Pepsi challenge. At one table, it's Coke vs Pepsi. At another, it's Jif vs Skippy. Hershey's vs Ghiradelli. Etc. This is the kind of idea that would scale really easily to any size of group and doesn't come off as at all "high-brow." Although it could certainly be as upscale as a client wanted it to be (white truffles vs black? foie gras vs chicken liver?).