Wine Education
Wine 101: Wine Confidence
Six Tuesday evenings. Twelve seats. No prerequisites.
Most wine education asks you to memorize things. This one teaches you to taste, and gives you the words for what you find. Six weeks in, you can walk into any shop or restaurant and buy well — without guessing, and without deferring to whoever sounds most confident.
Who it's for
Both ends of the room, deliberately. A twenty-year collector can sit next to someone who has never thought about wine past the price tag, and both leave having learned something.
It works because of a rule we hold all six weeks: you write down what you think before anyone says it out loud. Nobody anchors on the loudest opinion, nobody performs, and the beginner's answer turns out to be right about as often as the expert's. Beginners stop hedging and collectors stop holding court.
Come alone, come with a partner, come with friends. The class is built to work whichever way you show up.
What you'll be able to do afterward
- Taste a wine and describe it in specific terms — not "smooth" or "dry," but what's actually happening in the glass
- Say why you like something, which is what makes the next bottle easier to choose
- Read a label and know roughly what's in the bottle before you open it
- Order from a restaurant list without reaching for the second-cheapest thing
- Recognize a flawed bottle — corked, oxidized, cooked — and send it back without hesitating
- Know what's worth cellaring and what to open this year
The six sessions
What wine actually is
Grapes, fermentation, and the handful of choices that decide how a wine tastes before anyone opens it. Then the tasting vocabulary we'll use for the rest of the course — taught on night one, so you have the words in hand from the start rather than at the end.
Reading a label, and the white grapes
Why a European label tells you a place and an American one tells you a grape, and how to decode both. Then the major whites side by side, so the differences land as things you can taste rather than facts you're told.
The red grapes
Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Syrah and the rest — what each one actually tastes like, and how the same grape changes when it's grown somewhere warmer or cooler.
Ordering, service, and flawed bottles
The practical night. Restaurant lists, temperature and glassware, and why some pairings work while most pairing advice doesn't. We also pour faulty wine on purpose — corked, oxidized, and heat-damaged — because reading about cork taint teaches you nothing and smelling it once teaches you everything. Heat damage is the one you'll meet most often in Florida, and most people who drink it never realize what happened.
Bubbles and rosé
How sparkling wine is actually made and why that explains the price gap between two bottles that look identical. Plus rosé, which most people write off without ever knowing why.
Putting it together
Blind tasting using everything from the previous five weeks, buying and cellaring with a plan instead of a hunch, and where to go next if you want to keep going.
How it runs
Ninety minutes, in the tasting room at 1125 Serenoa Rd. Wine is poured every session and included in the price — you're not buying bottles on top.
It's taught, not lectured. Every session is built around wines poured side by side. Tasting two wines that differ by exactly one thing will teach you more about oak, or about climate, than any amount of explaining.
If you miss a night
We hold your wine for that session and send you a recording. Six weeks is a long stretch and life happens; missing one doesn't mean falling behind.
Class size
Capped at twelve so everyone can taste, ask, and be heard. Six registrations are needed for the course to run.
Who's teaching
Justin Goodman, WSET-certified with specialty certifications in Napa Valley and Champagne, twenty years in the wine trade, and the owner of the building.
Reserve your seat
Six sessions, all wine included. Twelve seats total.
Payment is handled by Stripe. You'll get a confirmation with the full schedule and what to expect on the first night.
Questions about the course? Call 850-446-WINE or send us a note.