Sessions and events
Hosting an event? I can teach your guests about wine, or run a round of tasting games.
Volary is a Queensland wine publication. I also run tasting sessions in person, for venues, workplaces and private hosts.
There are two formats. Wine Basics teaches people how to taste properly. Wine Games turns the same knowledge into a competition. Both are built for people who know nothing about wine.
The formats
Wine Basics
The beginners evening. It is built around the only question that actually matters at a table: do I like this wine? Everything else is method for answering it with some confidence.
We cover how to taste a wine properly, how pairing works, how to read a wine list without guessing, and what is going on when a sommelier presents a bottle and pours a taste. Guests taste their way through it, five or six pours across the evening.
Everyone leaves with printed reference cards worth keeping: how to taste, how to pair and order, and a tasting note template.
90 minutes, 5 to 25 people. Best for work functions and groups where most people have never been to a tasting.
Wine Games
The same knowledge with the teaching taken out. Guests taste blind and compete.
The centrepiece is Wine Casino, a blind tasting run against a wager board with poker chips. Chips go down before the bottle is revealed, so nobody gets to retreat into "I knew it was a Pinot." One round of it does more for a beginner than an hour of instruction, because it forces a call instead of a hedge.
Variations to suit the room: wine trivia, an all-Queensland flight, a single variety, or Old World against New. A prize at the end, and an argument at the table throughout.
Best for Christmas parties and groups who have done a straight tasting before and want something with more edge. It also works as one part of a bigger event.
What to expect from me
I hold WSET Level 2 and spent my weekends running public tastings at the Gundog Estate cellar door before moving back to Queensland. I write Volary, which means I taste and assess wine on the record and put my name to the verdict.
There are no slides. The session is built so that people who arrived nervous about wine are arguing about what is in the glass by the second pour.
Where the money comes from
Volary rates wine, so it matters who is paying me.
I do not accept payment from wine producers, for a session or for anything else. If a producer's wine is poured at an event I run, I chose it and nobody paid for the spot.
Venues and businesses do pay me to run sessions. Where a venue books me and Volary later writes about a wine that venue stocks, it gets declared on the piece, the same way samples and hospitality are. How Volary Works sets out the full policy.
Enquiries
Tell me the room, roughly how many people, and the date you have in mind.
Or run one yourself
No booking required. Wine Casino has the full rules for the blind tasting game, including the board and the odds, so you can run it at your own table. Wine Basics is the written version of the beginners session, with the same reference cards to download.