Starting a Wine Tasting Club......

I have the opportunity to take over the running of an existing and well established wine tasting group in the UK.
I have various ideas to improve the tastings but I would certainly value any positive help to make this the best tasting group.
Key areas that I want help with are:
Communication frequency?
Subscription fee or free?
Costs of caterers/venues?

There is no problem choosing the wines or finding genuine interesting wine people to talk about their wines. My main concerns are more the logistics and perhaps entering something that could be a lot of work for very little return.
Any positive or negative experience of such ventures would be appreciated!

Tags: Groups, Tasting

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Permalink Reply by Brent Johnson on November 17, 2008 at 2:44pm

I've wrote a couple of white papers about starting a wine club and growing a wine club that you can get for free. You can check them out here:
- How To Develop A Wine Club
- How To Grow Your Wine Club

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Permalink Reply by Bob Robertson on November 17, 2008 at 2:56pm

Wakes-Miller:

Here in Napa Valley, I have been a member of a monthly tasting group for about seven years. I'm a former winemaker, but most of us are not wine professionals, which is refreshing, (I hate technical jargon) but all have some connection to wineries or the winery hospitality/bed and breakfast community, so it's not as if someone is completely at sea.

I don't do the accounting for this group, but an annual dues payment of around $200 US dollars is solicted, and all subsequrnt wine tastings allow one to either pay one's share from the bank or up front, as they wish. We generally don't entertain wines over $60 dollars US, except two or three times a year. The costs include a cheese course, and there's no catering, because we rotate in everyone's homes.

I'm speaking for a group of about twelve to fifteen, as many tastes as you can reasonably get from one bottle.

We have also downsized the tasting format from eight bottles to six, because in a social environment it's impossible to discuss so many wines very effectively.

Our wines are scored by simple ranking 1 to 6, best to last. We add up the scores, and the lowest score wins. It's as simple as that, no need to use a hundred-point scale or that rubbish. In case of a tie, we look at the number of first place votes.

And then we discuss the wines extensively. This is the fun part.

I think monthly is frequent enough. Less than one month becomes a drag, and over three months is "oh hell, I forgot".

We meet on Friday evenings at 7:30 PM, to avoid weekend comittments, and we are usually over by 9:30 PM.

I am a former winemaker and my wife has very little experience as a taster, but her scores are always right down the middle, the most consistent scorer of the group.

This is fun, not professional gymnastics. I enjoy it for the same reason all wine should be enjoyed -- pleasure, not competition.

--Bob Robertson ("Bobchai" on Youtube)
Napa Valley, California

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Permalink Reply by Hamish Wakes-Miller on November 18, 2008 at 9:27am

Thanks Brent.
I've signed up on your site and look forward to receiving info.

Thanks Bob
Your tasting group looks good. I agree the fun aspect should definitely not be lost. I want to keep it simple, but also to do something different. I want to challenge people slightly (without putting them off) and develop different ways of expressing opinions. I also want the wine group not to be intimidating and something unmissable in the diary. My wife has endured 20 years of being attached to a wine geek like me, so she will be the stabilizing influence. I don't want to pitch the tasting club too high. I want it to be inclusive.

Starting a Wine Tasting Club......

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