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Independent Wine Consultant

Corporate Entertainment

Master Classes & Presentations

The true enjoyment of wine is affected by many factors: whether it accompanies food or not, the company in which you drink it, the formality or informality of the occasion, the weather and the location.

The whole wine drinking and food matching experience can be enhanced without having to plough through turgid wine tomes or, worse still, make objective sense of florid back label descriptions. A little education can quickly go a long way.

Serving your own culinary creations with an appropriate drink is an immensely rewarding experience for you and your guests, and with a little education, expensive mismatches between wine and food can be avoided.

The spectrum of wines available has expanded immensely over the last twenty years but banks of supermarket shelves can be intimidating places where some basic sound taste advice is required.

Tasting with Kindness aims to plug at least a piece of this knowledge gap and also to encourage you to enhance your whole experience and the enjoyment of wine.

WINE THOUGHT OF THE MONTH - DON'T DESPISE SOAVE


I'm old enough to remember when Soave came in big 2L. bottles, was cheap and pretty unpleasant.


Most of that mass production came from poor sites on the floor of the Po Valley where quantity was sadly valued above quality.


However, there have always been a bevvy of quality producers from the better Soave Classico sites and thankfully these are starting to appear on restaurant and wine-bar lists.


A Gargenaga-rich Soave Classico with Friday night Fish & Chips is bliss and is still cheap!!!  







Corporate Entertainment

A “Tasting with Kindness” tutored wine-tasting is fun, educational and value for money. I have been running wine-tastings for novices for over fifteen years. My combined experience and enthusiasm will spread infectiously through your group, ensuring an enjoyable and rewarding event.

Small tastings can be arranged at short notice for visiting customers or team building sessions. Full departmental or company events can be combined with your usual catering arrangements and can be run at your own premises to keep the costs down.

I bring my own glasses, tasting sheets and years of experience. You choose how much you want to spend on the raw materials. This can be from £7 a bottle upwards and my chosen wines are all sourced from reputable merchants.

This is not a wine selling exercise; I charge a fee for my services. But, if you wish, I can supply any of the wines featured in the tasting.

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Master Classes & Presentations

Wine-tastings are aimed mainly at the novice taster. For the more experienced taster or for the real enthusiast, I will be running Masterclasses and Wine Appreciation presentations.

Masterclasses can cover both vertical and horizontal tastings of Claret, Champagne, Sherry and Port or can be dedicated to a specific region or country e.g. Rioja, Tuscany, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Alsace etc.

The Masterclasses are all individually customised so please call me to discuss your requirements.

The Wine Appreciation presentations can be customised from a set of my own wine hobby-horses that I have gathered over the years. These can de delivered either as part of a tasting session or as a specific presentation with suitable samples and exhibits.

Below are a selection of topics that can be individually tailored for your event.

  • “Back to ABC” Anything But Chardonnay, a celebration of native grape varieties
  • Serving wine, decanting, glasses, cork- screws, storage and temperature
  • Why “3 for 2” supermarket offers aren’t good in the long term interests of wine lovers
  • “Chardonnay isn’t a wine!”
  • Supermarkets versus Wine Merchants
  • “Food Wines” contrasted with “Friendship Wines"
  • Translating wine labels
  • Sherry, the greatest price/performer, yet neglected
  • Dessert wines aren’t just for Auntie at Christmas
  • Terroir. Is it relevant?
  • Champagne versus Methode Traditionnelle
Wine Tasting Circle

For many years I have been buying wines at auction and sharing these out with a growing group of friends. Buying at auction brings access to wines from the “classic” regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy along with Port, Cognac and Champagne. These wines are often not available retail and if they are, it will be at prohibitive prices.

I have now expanded this offering to a larger group via a Tasting with Kindness Wine Circle.Wines will primarily be from France, so if your only tipple is New World Chardonnay then this Wine Circle is probably not for you. However, increasingly, top notch wines from Italy, Australia, the Rhone Valley and South Africa are coming to auction and I include these along with a small selection of dessert and fortified wines.

So, I’ll do the hard research and selection and you will benefit from having access to some of the world’s finest wines at a realistic cost. The size of the Wine Circle will be restricted for practical purposes, so if you are interested, please contact me for an application form and questionnaire.