Wine Appreciation Club events

TASTE OF THE NATIONS TASTING, 13TH OCT 2007

The CEIBS Wine Appreciation Club was formed in October 2007 with the aim of enabling the community here in CEIBS to gain knowledge about the appreciation of wines. We kicked off our first event on the 13th Oct 2007 with the Taste of the Nations tasting at the Radisson Plaza Xing Guo Hotel, which was held in conjunction with Torres China. The tasting event featured over 150 wines from 11 different countries from all around the world. Over 30 people attend this event. This first event was organized to allow all those who had little prior knowledge about wines to have a first hand experience about the diversity of wines that exist around different wine growing regions in the world, including Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and China.

INTRODUCTORY TASTING - BASIC WINE TASTING TECHNIQUES, 6TH NOV 2007

Being very encouraged by the response shown by the CEIBS in the Taste of the Nations Tasting, the Wine Appreciation Club proceeded to launch its first formal event here in CEIBS with our first tutored tasting. The theme for the first Introductory Tasting was Basic Wine Tasting Techniques. The focus of this tasting was to teach all those who are new to wine tasting the basic techniques of wine appreciation, emphasizing on the methods on how to taste a wine based on its 3 main attributes: Smell, Sight and Taste. The event was held in conjunction with Torres China, and we were very honored to have Mr Lionel Le Gal from Torres China to host the event. The tasting event featured 8 different wines from the Torres portfolio of wines, including wines from Spain, Australia, Italy, Chile and France. The night attracted almost 50 participants, and it turned out to be very entertaining event for all. Terence Yiin, the CEIBS Wine Appreciation Club Founding President, also shared with everyone the aims and objectives of the club, and gave a presentation of what other events will be coming in the near future from the club. The aim of the club is to introduce a series of tasting events that will allow everyone to grow with the club, and allowing everyone to learn about the fundamentals of wine appreciation, starting from basic wine tasting techniques, moving on to appreciating different wine styles, learning about different grape varietals, wine making techniques and finally food and wine matching.

The CEIBS Wine Appreciation also announced a partnership with Torres China, whereby MBA students who bought their wines through the club will receive an instant 20% discount. The aim of this initiative is to allow all MBA students to continue to further their interest in wine appreciation without breaking their bank.

APPRECIATING DIFFERENT WINE STYLES - NEW WORLD VS OLD WORLD WINES, 29TH NOV 2007

Driven by the response that was shown during our first tutored tasting event, the Wine Appreciation Club proceeded to organise our next wine event. The theme of the event was to learn how to appreciate different wine styles, and a tasting of New World Wines vs Old World Wines was the main theme of this tasting. The event was again organized in conjunction with Torres China, and we are again very honoured to have Mr Lionel Le Gal as our guest speaker for this event. During this event, Mr Le Gal spoke about some of the basic differences between New World Wines (countries include Australia, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, USA etc) and Old World Wines (France, Spain, Italy etc). The aim of this first tasting was to allow everyone to gain a very basic understanding about the differences in wines from different regions. The differences were mainly attributed to what the French would term as ‘terroir’ (how different elements in the environment interact to together to produce the grapes) as well as the differences in wine making techniques and philosophies. It was emphasized that the uniqueness of the different climates and soil structure contributed very much to the differences in wine styles between New World and Old World wines. The tasting featured 6 different wines (3 from the Old World and 3 from the New World) including wines from Spain, France, Argentina, Australia.