The four formats
8 to 40 · Ninety minutes · In town
The in-office tasting
A sommelier or a wine educator brings six to eight wines to the office or a rented room, pours, and talks. The easiest to schedule and the cheapest to run. The limits are the room (a conference room with wine in it is still a conference room) and the fact that nobody has gone anywhere. Good for a lunch-and-learn; thin as an event.
6 to 24 · Two hours · Hill Country
The private room at a winery
A seated, guided tasting in a winery's private room, led by the people who made the wine, often paired with small bites. Kuhlman Cellars in Stonewall and William Chris in Hye run this format superbly; Fall Creek at Driftwood is closer to town. For a leadership group or a client, this is the one. Transportation makes it a half day.
Any size · A full day · Hill Country
The winery crawl
Three wineries, tastings reserved and seated at each, lunch in the middle, a driver for the day. The team sees three different houses and three different approaches, which is what makes it a tasting rather than a drink. Door to door from the office, and the format most Austin companies end up choosing.
40 to several hundred · An afternoon and evening · Hill Country
The estate buyout
A winery reserved whole for the company. Guided tastings run in parallel in small groups so a hundred people can taste at once, a blind tasting challenge for the whole room, an open bar, remarks, and dinner on the property. It is a tasting in the way a gala is a dinner: the tasting is the spine, the event is the body.
What drives the budget
Corporate tastings are priced per event, not off a menu, and the number moves with a handful of decisions. Knowing them lets you shape the event to the budget rather than the other way around.
- Headcount, which scales everything from the pour to the vehicles.
- Format. An in-office tasting is the least expensive; a buyout is an event with staffing, venue and catering.
- Where the tasting happens. Hill Country tasting fees at the standard public flights typically run twenty to forty dollars a person; seated, paired, private tastings are more; buyouts are priced as events.
- Food. Charcuterie on the table, a BBQ lunch, or a catered dinner are three very different lines.
- The bar beyond the tasting. Tastings only, a glass after, or an open bar through the evening.
- Transportation. One Sprinter, several, or motorcoaches, and how far the day goes.
- Add-ons: a winemaker's time, bottles for the challenge winners, photography, sound for the remarks.
Group size and what it changes
| Headcount | Best format | The practical reason |
|---|---|---|
| 6 to 12 | Private room, or a crawl in one Sprinter | Everyone at one table; the winemaker can talk to everyone |
| 13 to 25 | A crawl in two Sprinters with reserved rooms | Most private rooms stop around twenty-four; two vehicles keep the day together |
| 25 to 40 | A crawl with reserved patio sections and a dedicated pour | Tasting rooms can seat the group but need notice and a plan |
| 40 to 100 | A winery reserved for the afternoon, tastings in small groups | Parallel tastings are the only way a crowd actually tastes |
| 100 and up | An estate buyout with a program and coaches | It is an event; the tasting is its spine |
Logistics that decide the day
- Time of day. Tastings land best between eleven and four. Nobody tastes well at nine in the morning, and after five the room wants to be a bar.
- Food, always. Charcuterie on every table at minimum, a real meal if the day is longer than three hours.
- Water on every table and in every vehicle, poured without anyone asking.
- Non-drinkers. A real non-alcoholic pour, and a tasting format (the aroma round, the blind challenge by smell) that they can take part in fully.
- Transportation sized for the group and decided with the venue, so nobody drives after a tasting.
- Dress and footwear. Winery lots are gravel and patios are stone. Say so.
- Bottles. People will want to buy them. A cooler in the vehicle and a plan for who pays.
How to run a blind tasting challenge
The format we are asked about most, and the one that turns a tasting into a team event. It takes about forty minutes, works for any number of teams, and ends with a winner. Here is how we run it.
- 1Split the room into teams of four to six, mixing departments deliberately. Give each team a name and a scorecard.
- 2Pour three wines blind, in numbered glasses or covered bottles. One white, two reds works well; include at least one Texas wine.
- 3Round one, aroma: each team writes three aromas it finds in each glass. Score a point for each one that matches the host's list (cherry, leather, white pepper, wet stone, and so on).
- 4Round two, structure: light or full, dry or off-dry, high or low acid. A point for each correct call.
- 5Round three, the grape: each team names the variety. Three points for the right grape, one for the right family (a Rhone red, a Bordeaux white).
- 6The tiebreaker: which of the three is from Texas, and which is the most expensive. Settles most ties and starts most arguments.
- 7Reveal the wines one at a time with a sentence about each. Crown the winners, hand each of them a bottle, take the photo.
When to book
An in-office tasting, two weeks. A private winery room, two to three weeks, more in spring and fall when they fill with weddings and wine clubs. A crawl for one or two vehicles, one to two weeks. A buyout, four to eight weeks so the winery can hold the date and the caterer can plan. December, by October.
Austin Wine Car
A tasting for your team, arranged
A private room for twelve or an estate for two hundred, with the challenge run by our host and the tastings set up before anyone arrives. Tell us the headcount and the date.