Wine Wednesday in the Pearl- Update

I've been getting a lot of questions the last week or so as to what's going on for the next WWIP. Hopefully this will give some of you an insight into what's planning, and where I'm hoping to take these events in the future.

I'm still in the process of developing relationships with Pearl Neighborhood restaurants. My goal is to turn WWIP into a truly neighborhood event, not something that is my wine crawl on my day off. I'd like to have special deals offered to WWIP attendees at various places all night long.

My portion of the event is a little more focused this time around. Last month I enjoyed just having a whole bunch of people over to open some bottles and chat, a little networking as it were. I've had multiple requests for some wine-training to be involved, so this time I'll be presenting a class.

In my year and a half in Portland, I've only seen a handful of wines opened properly. Now, generally speaking, proper service etiquette isn't observed- you don't need to go through all the steps for popping a bottle at home, nor is it necessary to observe all the steps in most of our dining establishments. However, on those occasions when something really special is being opened up (even if the server doesn't think it's all that special, it might be special for the table), it's vital to observe the rituals. Although I think that Wine Opening 101 is a primarily industry focused class, there are some very valid reasons why consumers should attend as well.

Wine Opening 101- Learn the proper steps of opening wine: Still service; Presentation; Cork Presentation; Serviette Usage; Sparkling Service. This class is vital for any person seeking to work in the service industry where proper wine service might be required. This class is also extremely helpful for the consumer who is serious about proper dining (don't you want to know that your server is doing things *right*?).

I'm all for tipping 20-25% for service, but only if it's warranted. If my server can't open my wine properly, they're not getting that extra bump.

So, to summarize:

Next Wine Wednesday in the Pearl is scheduled for Sept 23, 2009.
Special wine deals at local Pearl restaurants to be announced!
Wine Opening 101 class at Asa Skylounge 6:30pm -8:30pm

The joy of the class at Asa? We're gonna drink all the wine we open up during class. The drawback? It will have a minor cost involved.
I'll start posting more aggressively as we get closer to the event, looking forward to seeing you all there!