How to Host a Great Virtual Wine Tasting Event
/Here’s how to turn COVID 19’s “virtual happy hours” into an elevated brand building event while supporting local wineries and restaurants!
What would Decantress do?
I formerly moonlit as “Decantress”, a wine-blogger and certified sommelier who spent my weekends galavanting around Napa wine country visiting new wineries and restaurants and sharing my tips with oenophiles around the world. After becoming pregnant and then giving birth to my son, Giacomo, I had less time and desire to focus on wine in my spare time, though it’s still my adult beverage of choice to enjoy socially on the weekends. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed the same, but from a poll I’ve taken among my friends and colleagues, if you’ve been drinking more wine during COVID-19 social distancing, you’re not alone! In an effort to recreate former evening event plans, virtual happy hours have quickly become a global trend, and I’ve personally noticed I’m drinking more wine these days than when I was previously allowed to go out and socialize. It makes sense, because I don’t have to worry about childcare for my son, or driving to/from a social event with time leftover to pick him up from preschool. This new trend got me thinking...with companies struggling to rethink events in a safe, virtual medium, why not capitalize on this “social trend” to serve a business purpose?
I’ve always found people enjoy a wine-tasting experience. In fact, Napa California is the second most visited locale in California by tourists second only to DisneyLand! There’s something about the experience of swirling, sniffing, tasting, and sharing your uniquely subjective experience of the wine “earthy, ripe peaches, black cherry, rosemary!” that creates an enjoyable bonding experience. And wine has brought people together since the most ancient times. It appeals to those who are highly educated aficionados, and even those who would like to know more about it, making wine-tasting a great universal experience and opportunity for companies to stay connected with their clients. If you’re looking for a way to bring your clients or potential customers together, build brand love, and offer a learning experience, hosting a virtual tasting is a virtual event I’d highly recommend trying.
I actually have hosted virtual wine tastings in the past, but the reason was not due to a quarantine, but rather as a creative way to introduce a Google product. I’ve always loved coming up with creative ways to introduce a product and make it more relatable or social because it helps people remember it while providing context. When Google Hangouts had just reached the market, I came up with the idea to hold virtual wine tastings at our Google Think event evening receptions. This translated into a recurring theme of proving social utility for the product, by way of demonstration. In order to best convey Google Hangout’s ability to connect people from all over, my catering team set up a conference room with pre-poured glasses of wine, a sheet with tasting notes, and snacks for pairing. Members from my team and I would log into a live Hangout with an engaging sommelier based somewhere across the country (for effect), and the entire room would join in a tasting demonstration, carried out by the sommelier hundreds of miles away. Occasionally, the sommelier would call out to a member in the conference room for their opinion on a particular wine, surprising and delighting the guests who weren’t expecting such a successful two-way dialogue from the product. Everyone had a great time while experiencing a new product in a fun context. The tastings were so successful because the sommeliers would make sure there was a two-way interaction between them and the guests partaking in the experience. We also curated specially themed flights that would appeal to the audience at our event. Below I’ll share my recommendations for how to host a brilliant virtual wine tasting.
Select a Theme:
Rather than just select random wines to taste with your virtual guests, come up with a theme that will hopefully lure them in. Here are some thought starters:
Pinots from around the world (I like to include French pinot (Burgundy), a Sonoma or Monterey pinot Noir, an Oregon pinot noir and an Australian Pinot Noir, which offers a nice variety of styles.
Old World vs New World wines: Old world wines come from European regions like France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Germany, while New World wines include the United States, South America, South Africa, and Australia. Old World wines have a distinctly different style and taste than new world which makes them fun to taste and compare side by side, especially if tasting the same varietal.
Bubbles from around the world (this can include prosecco from Italy, sparkling wine from Napa, cava from Spain, and Champagne from France). Also try different styles like rose, cremant, ulta-sec, etc.
Different varietals from a certain region or vineyard: Here, you can highlight wines from a region, such as: the Bordeaux Region of France, or you can highlight a special wine portfolio from a wine producer, such as Hamel Family Wines based in Sonoma.
Select a great sommelier:
An engaging sommelier is also a nice draw to make sure you have a good turn-out. Think about what will appeal to the guests you’re trying to attract.
Perhaps you can highlight a female sommelier, a sommelier from a famous winery or restaurant, or a sommelier who has their Court of Master Sommeliers Master certification.
Make sure that the somm you select is engaging and prepared to ask and answer questions in addition to just leading a formal wine tasting. This will make for a more fun and engaging experience.
Ship the goods & resources to your guests
As a really nice touch, print up tasting note menus that you can mail or email your guests in advance, that they can use to guide their tasting. As a really nice touch (and budget permitting), send your guests a bottle (or small vial) of each of the wines you will be tasting that evening. Make sure you specify that the wines should be “unboxed” only during the live tasting because there’s something really exciting about unboxing a product live.
Select and Practice your platform
Select a live-streaming platform (I like Google Hangouts or Zoom), to generate a code that you can then provide to your users. Encourage them to add it to their calendars, and to download the software in advance if need be. Schedule a “test run” with your sommelier to make sure they look and sound good on the virtual platform and have them log in fifteen minutes before the session is set to go live. That way, if there are any connectivity issues, you still have time to troubleshoot before guests log in for the experience.
