Successful Meetings - June 2008 - (Page 88)

Best Practices > MiGurus experts’ blogs from www.MiMegasite.com Words from the Wise PUT A CORK IN IT: SIX WINE MYTHS DEBUNKED In the last few years, America has embraced wine with a passion, though some persistent wine myths still prohibit many event planners from making educated, informed wine selections. With the right wine facts though, you can impress clients and guests, branding yourself through unexpectedly delicious wines. Here are six wine myths that need debunking: There’s a direct correlation between price and taste: No. Price is solely a function of supply and demand. There are tasty and memorable wines available at all price points; many By Michael Green can be found for less than $30 on restauGourmet Magazine rant or hotel wine lists. New York, NY When planning your next event, give the beverage director a clear price point and ask them for their favorite selections. You’d be surprised how often they name some of the most affordable on the list. Often, with advance notice, wine can be special ordered if there’s nothing on the menu that suits your needs. Lesson learned: Offering unique and delicious wines at lower price points reduces overall cost without sacrificing quality. Drier is better: Nope. Many slightly sweet wines are some of the best in the world. The best of the slightly sweeter wines available are a complex marriage of acidity and sweetness, the perfect accompaniment to all sorts of food. Lesson learned: Perfect wine pairings elevate the food, wine and experience. If a sweet wine works best, don’t be afraid to serve it. Rosés are always bad: Not true. This has been one of the hardest wine myths to dispel, but thankfully the long-standing belief that there aren’t any world-class rosés is fading fast. Sparkling rosés, with bright color and playful bubbles, are the perfect beverage to kick off an evening of celebration. Most rosés are dry and can be just as elegant and refined as any other style of wine. Lesson learned: Rosés boost people’s spirits! It’s hard not to enjoy something this colorful and fun. Screw caps are for cheap wine: Au contraire. Screw caps are often found on young wines, which are less expensive than older bottles but not at all low-quality. Today many stellar wines are coming out of newer wine producing countries like New Zealand, who love this “twisted pleasure.” Lesson learned: Great screw-cap selections convey casual chic, and you can be sure that every bottle will taste great. 4 1 5 Large producers produce inferior wines: That’s crazy talk. In years past, big bulk wine producers sometimes made inferior wines. But today, many prolific producers have begun crafting wines of outstanding quality. With modern winemaking technology, it’s becoming more and more difficult to produce low-quality wine, and many large wineries now produce amazing, affordable wines that rival even the smallest producers. Lesson learned: Big wineries produce consistent, crowdpleasing wines that you can bet on people enjoying, and unlike smaller producers they’re easy to find, anywhere, any time of year. A wine with a high rating must be good: Sadly, no. It’s an unfortunate trend that evaluating wines has become reduced to numerical ratings. Reducing it to a point scale sucks all the life and nuance out of this wonderful beverage. Ratings don’t tell you anything about a wine other than that it’s probably heavy and alcoholic enough to overpower its more subtle (and perhaps more appropriate) peers in a comparative tasting. A better way to find great wines is to talk about flavor profiles—consider pre-tasting wines and find the best selections that fit your needs. Lesson learned: Selecting wine by just looking at point ratings does nothing to distinguish your selections, or your event. If you don’t trust your taste enough to make worthy wine choices, why should anyone else? 6 2 3 88 mimegasite.com JUNE 2008 SUCCESSFUL MEETINGS http://www.MiMegasite.com http://mimegasite.com

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Successful Meetings - June 2008 Contents Editor's Note Industry Trends Events Suppliers Associations Planner Spotlight: Kelly Broz Technology Talk Food & Beverage Websites of the Month Pre-Event: Tech Pre-Event: Bartering Tools of the Trade Dialing for Dollars The All-in-One Resort Bottom-Line Speakers Places & Spaces Florida’s West Coast Mississippi Atlanta Wisconsin Chicago Gurus Enjoy California Hawaii Handbook Las Vegas Night & Day

Successful Meetings - June 2008

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