In The Press: From Smart Meetings Magazine

April, 2009 - Carolyn Koenig
"No Vino Babble!"

"A meal without wine is called breakfast."

As you can tell by one of her favorite quotes, Christine Ansbacher is not your stereotypical wine educator. In fact, Ansbacher (aka “The Wine Diva”) is also an entertainer, and brings this intriguing combination of skills to corporate and association events across the country.

“I don’t want to share how grapes are grown, how wine is made, or anything technical—which I call vino babble,” the New York-based expert says. (She saves those pompous-sounding comments—“tastes like blueberries with a whiff of smoky bacon fat and tar”—for shop talk with sommeliers and other wine educators.) What she does like to share, however, are practical tips that save regular wine drinkers time, money and aggravation. “I believe in wine drinking, not wine thinking,” she quips.

So let’s take a fresh look at how you can use a wine tasting at your events: to break the ice between attendees at receptions; lift the spirits of glassy-eyed conference goers at a break out at the end of the day; fire up everyone’s competitive juices as a novel team-building event; and to inject pizzazz into a straight forward dinner (where she speaks in between the courses so the dinner lasts no longer than is regularly scheduled).

Ansbacher’s client list reads like the Wine Spectator’s “Best of” for brands, including Sony, Pepsi, Pfizer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, L’Oreal.....

Her academic credentials are solid gold too. “When I first did wine tastings a decade ago and shared my technical knowledge, I found I was putting people to sleep,” she recounts. Those were the days when she wanted to use the geeky knowledge she had gained from two world-class wine degrees attained by few than 200 wine professionals in the US. What the audience really wanted, she soon realized, was to have a fun time tasting different style wines, so she began using a more lighthearted approach. “Corporate groups don’t want serious wine seminars,” she says. “They want lots of entertainment value, with a bit of substance.”

Ansbacher delivers both. She peppers her commentary with famous quotes, jokes, anecdotes, and does a live demo slicing off the top of a Champagne bottle (see photo below) the way cavalry officers celebrated victory on the battlefield in the 1800’s. Then she teaches a client to do the same to the wild cheers of the audience. She also effectively weaves in lots of cartoons to make her points. For example, when talking about how confusing food and wine pairing is, she will describe the Far Side cartoon in which two bears are foraging in the forest and spy a hunter. “I forget,” says one bear to the other. “Is it white wine with fisherman and red wine with hunters?”

Before the event, she works with planners to tie her remarks and presentation into the event’s theme, while tailoring the program to their budget. She has six of her most popular wine tasting topics on her website (thewinediva.com), but will customize a topic to suit the planner’s needs.

Ansbacher also shares lots of insider tricks for getting more out of your glass of vino—three of which she shares here with Smart Meetings readers (for more tips and tricks, see her book, Secrets from The Wine Diva).

How to make a $10 Bottle of Wine Taste Like a $30 Bottle
The tips are easy to remember using the acronym TAG, Ansbacher says (hint: think of your childhood game).

T=Temperature. When the server brings your wine at a restaurant, don’t just look at the label to make sure it’s the one you ordered—feel it, and check the temperature to see if it’s warm. Red wine is supposed to be served at room temperature, a guideline established about 350 years ago in England, before central heating. “Room temperature is 71–72 degrees now; it was the mid-60s then,” she explains. “If the red wine is room temperature, send it back or send it ‘skinny dipping’— ask the waiter to bring over an ice bucket, and dip it in the ice bucket for just 5 minutes. When the wine comes out, it’ll be slightly cool — the perfect temperature.”

A=Aeration. Big red wines like Cabernet, Merlot and Syrah have a lot of tannin (she prefers the simple, non-technical term preservative) to help them last for many years, but these tannins “make your mouth feel dried out.” But all that’s needed is aeration to soften them up. “Initially big red wines feel like rough Harris tweed in your mouth, but aeration immediately makes them feel like silk,” she says. So just ask the waiter to aerate the bottle before pouring it. If the restaurant doesn’t have a wine decanter, even an orange juice pitcher will do, she says. People who taste the wine blind before decanting and afterward invariably choose the decanted wine as their favorite; and they even think it’s a better, more expensive wine — but it’s the same wine!

G=Glass. Unless you order a very expensive wine, most restaurants will serve your red wine in regular red wine glasses instead of the big balloons kept for patrons who appreciate fine wines and can afford them. But, Ansbacher suggests, if your wine comes with regular-sized glasses, tell your waiter (nicely) that you really understand what a difference the size of the wine glass makes, and you’d appreciate it if they served your wine in their bigger glasses. Some people may not be comfortable following these steps, she says. “They sound too persnickety.” But, she continues, “I like to use the mustard analogy. Asking for mustard on your hamburger, or for the server to bring you some pickles, is no different than asking for a decanter or an ice bucket. It’s just asking for something you want.” And you’re paying the bill.



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