Two years ago the Army moved us from Fort Bragg, NC to Colorado Springs, CO. Though it was a bittersweet move, my group of friends from North Carolina have been exceptional at keeping in touch and up to date on each others lives. A couple weeks ago, my friend Beth, who we met through our “hoodrat” friends in our neighborhood, reached out to me to discuss the idea of a virtual wine tasting party. I was ecstatic! How fun would that be?
Initially, most people are confused by this idea of a virtual wine tasting party. Don’t worry – we ACTUALLY drank wine! Beth is a Rodan and Fields consultant and was hosting an event with her friend and fellow consultant, Amy (If you’re looking for an R+F Consultant, please let me know and I will put you in touch!). They thought it might be fun to include a wine tasting as part of the party. I thought it was a great idea, though I knew it could be a slight logistical challenge.
The first necessity was determining the “theme”. I told them that it would be easier to taste only white wines, only red wines, or some sort of theme of wines. They chose “holiday prep” as the theme of their event, so along with the skincare products, they discussed holiday makeup application, our mutual friend Candy of She Bakes: Confessions of a Baking Addict made gorgeous cookies, and I hosted the wine tasting of five wines that I would recommend for the holidays.
Beth and Amy told me that their best wine shop in the Destin area was Chan’s Wine World of Destin. This is truly a great wine shop as they have all of their wine inventory online. Additionally, I called them to inquire about the stock they had of certain wines and they graciously pulled the wines off the shelf that I requested and boxed them for Beth’s purchase and pickup. How convenient! So, all I had to do was pickup the same wines on my end so that I could pre-taste and contribute to their experience. Fortunately, I was able to bribe a couple of my best Colorado Springs neighbor friends to join me on my end of the tasting (bribed with free wine of course).
In regards to the technology, I hosted the event through Zoom, which is very user-friendly and a great method for hosting a clear video and audio communication. I generated an easy survey on surveygizmo.com and created a link on grapejuicemom.com for the participants to access the tasting survey. The survey included two brief questions per wine tasting: (1) Rate this wine on a scale of one to five and (2) describe this wine in three of your own words. Keeping surveys this simple incentivizes the participation in the survey and keeps your guests’ attention.
The five wines we tasted were (1) Chandon Brut, California, (2) Decoy by Duckhorn Chardonnay, Sonoma, (3) La Crema Pinot Noir, Monterey, (4) Bear Flag Zinfandel, and (5) Miles Madeira Rainwater. If you’re interested in seeing the results and feedback from the tasting, check it out here!
