Glasses up if you like wine.

Take a swig if you actually know anything about wine

..I’m out.  Okay not completely out.  I know which is my favourite bottle to pick up from my local shop, there’s a specific red that I’ve only ever managed to find in Venice (Raboso) and Aldi do an alright bottle of red.  Doesn’t exactly make me a wine connoisseur does it?

A wine tasting even has me at “tasting wine” but the thought of swilling, swishing and spitting wine alongside people who look at a wine menu and actually know what they’re talking about is something that makes me feel, if I’m honest, a little intimidated.

I needn’t have worried, wine is apparently the International language for “lets have a bloody lovely evening”.

I may be hopeless when it comes to wine, but one person who knows his stuff and is on a mission to educate (and get the people of Manchester suitably drunk) is renowned Italian sommelier and owner of Club Vino, Marco Castellanali.  Club Vino offers wine tasting experiences in Manchester at exclusive hotels in the city.  With experiences ranging from Taste, Wine & Dine and their Sommelier Evening, theres something designed to suit both experience and budget.

I headed along one uncharacteristically sunny evening (for Manchester) to the stunning location of Great John Street Hotel for a taste of Australia at Club Vino’s Oceans 6 Taste evening.  

Australia is renowned for producing world class wines, from hearty reds to fruity whites it’s currently the seventh largest wine manufacturer in the world, producing more than 1000 million litres of wine every year.  Yep, you read that right, 1000 million litres.  Even I would struggle to work my way through that.

The Taste evening (which are themed based on wine regions – Oceans 6, Mediterranean & Champagne Supernova and start from £28pp) is the largest experience the brand offers in regards to group size.  With six exquisite examples of this renowned, diverse and adventurous region’s wines, Marco encourages you to sniff, swirl and taste whilst he tells the back story of each wine,  whether that’s the grape, the region it comes from or a quirky story about how the brand came to be.  

Beginning with a glass of chilled Prosecco from the Veneto region, there were 3 white and 3 red wines for us to treat our tastebuds to alongside a platter of meats, cheeses and breads – the best kinda social wine accompaniments in my opinion.

The Taste event is essentially your entry level wine tasting and attracts a varied crowd.  You have the people that already have a nose for wine and are there to learn about that specific region, those that (like me) enjoy wine but have absolutely no idea how to ‘properly’ taste wine and those who are just there to, well, drink and get tipsy (no shade).    What would be helpful is a few minutes at the beginning of the evening learning about how to ‘properly’ taste wine like a pro which I imagine would be more focused on during the Wine & Dine evening.

Marco is the perfect host from the off (and that has nothing to do with him greeting me with a glass of Prosecco), his attentiveness continues throughout the evening and he talks with such passion about wine that you instinctively want to hear more about the history.  Marco knows his wines and anybody who encourages me to have a glass of wine in each hand is a friend of mine.

Although I wouldn’t consider myself a wine aficionado (just yet) it certainly whet my appetite for one of the “next level” events on offer to hone my “skills” and is definitely an evening I’d recommend.  Whether you’re looking for an out of the norm date evening, a gift for the person who has everything or you fancy drinking a few glasses of wine (that isn’t Blossom Hill) with your besties whilst learning about what you’re sipping, Club Vino is the perfect place for first timers and those who consider themselves much more well researched than I.

Club Vino’s next Taste evening is The Mediterranean Club on 14th June followed by Champagne Supernova on 28th June.

*gifted experience, all views my own