IN THIS ISSUE:
A. Feature:
Bad Restaurants Exposed
B. Event Highlights:
May's Wine Tasting Dinners and Seminars
C. Wine Elite Philosophy:
The Fastest Way to Wine Understanding
This is
Sommelier Insight, the Wine Elite's update for wine aficionados, luxury consumers, restaurant professionals and event planners.
Each month, we deliver wine event ideas, a schedule of upcoming wine appreciation events, and objective information on wine from the perspective of independent sommeliers.
We are Your Central Resource for Private Wine Events, Wine Education and Sommelier Expertise
www.WineElite.org
We have specialist teams available for your project nationwide, not only in Southern California.
You can reach us anytime by replying to this email, or at [email protected] and 310 467 5582.
Special announcement: We will be the co-producer of this year's wine program of the
Newport Beach Wine & Food Festival, starting on September 19th.
During several sommelier tasting panel presentations we will show off some of the best communicators in the field of wine appreciation. More than 10 sommeliers and wine educators will share their independent insight on systematic wine analysis.
Hundreds of attendees will taste, and partially blind-taste, the same wines that the sommelier panel is discussing from a consumer perspective. All featured sommeliers will be wine educators and close friends of the Wine Elite, using our philosophy of presenting useful knowledge.
Check out the
festival website here.
A. Bad Restaurants Exposed: Missing a Good Wine Program?
Every hotel and restaurant owner knows that an impressive wine program is one of the best indicators for the overall quality of the cuisine and the overall destination appeal.
Here's how to spot a restaurant that doesn't know what they are doing on the wine side:
- The "sommelier" tells the guests things that sound improvised or aren't helpful.
- The wine specialist is a different person every time you visit, due to high turnover.
- The wine list has many similar California wines, but shows very little attention to the European classics that would allow a wide spectrum of flavors.
- The wine menu is not organized in a helpful and clear fashion.
- There are no specific wine pairing suggestions visible on the menu.
- Ubiquitous misspellings on the wine list indicate complete ignorance of French and Italian words. Most guests probably know more about wine than the venue management.
- No tasting flights are offered that pair with a sequence of dishes, not even upon request.
- The staff is obviously not trained in skillful wine and table service.
- High corkage fee that scares off those desirable diners who want to bring in their own aged wines.
That's when we recommend hiring the Wine Elite. We roll out a full suite of industry-leading features, based on independent sommelier expertise.
We build competitive and very profitable wine programs that we continue to manage externally. Our guest capturing and retaining methods have not only doubled wine sales, but increased repeat visitors, gourmet following and average table amount spent drastically.
B. Upcoming Public Wine Tastings in Southern California
The Wine Elite Society hosts an ongoing series of sommelier-guided wine tasting dinners for the public, often in our signature blind-tasting format.
Here are a the May tasting opportunities for Southern California residents.
Email for info and reservations.
--
Spectrum Wine Dinner&nbssp;-- May 7th in OC. See high-end menu
here.
--
Wine Elite Society&nnbsp;public tastings in
Orange County and San Diego.
--
Tamarind of London --- "Explosions of Flavor", May 15th in OC.
In this April we also finished our first Sommelier Training Academy course, with 17 happy graduates who are now tasting and advising at a higher level.
Our next 4-week course (every Tuesday at 6pm) will start in June in Newport Beach.
Sign up here now. The last course included 45 wines from around the world, discussed and blind-tasted with several instructors. We can connect you with our past students for feedback.

C. Wine Elite Philosophy: The Fastest Way to Wine Understanding
From all the methods of wine learning we observed, the most efficient route looks like this:
(1) differentiating among similar wines in side-by-side comparison
(2) integrating essential similarities among wines from side-by-side comparison and prior experience
(3) isolating the essential, typical attributes of each type of wine, ultimately resulting in a useful, well-organized mental “database.”
In practice, using this method means
- drinking two or more wines at a time
- discussing differences and similarities among their important attributes
- choosing only the most important wines for each tasting, in order to gather the most useful knowledge from the time allotted
- where possible, choosing wines that are likely to be typical of their kind

Overview of our Resources for Your Use:
Catalog for Corporate Wine Tasting Events
Catalog of Wine Elite Programs for Restaurants
Topic Suggestions for Private Events
Private Wine Event Checklist
Whiskey Tasting Tips
GrapeRadio Interview
Speaker Profile at GigMasters
Public Speaker Program on Wine One-Sheet
Wine Elite Corporate Event Video
Essential Wine Tips 2pager
Special Events Idea One-Sheet
Program Brochure for Team Building Events
April 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
March 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
February 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
January 2014 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
December 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
November 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
October 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
September 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter
August 2013 "Sommelier Insight" Newsletter