Monday evening, I took my dad and his spouse, Rolande, to the Wine Library Super Tasting being held at beautiful The Manor in West Orange, NJ.  The event coincided perfectly with my dad’s yearly pilgrimage to see me in New Jersey from Quebec, so I was excited to surprise them with tickets to the tasting.

A portion of the proceeds from the event will benefit The Gateway Chamber of Commerce Scholarship Fund, which is geared toward students pursuing technical and career oriented education.

With over 700 wines being poured, it was imperative that I arrive at the event prepared.  To add to the excitement of attending the tasting, I created a database where names of the wines we wanted to taste along with their table numbers could be added.  From there, I had my dad and Rolande compile a list of wines they would like to sample and I built mine.  There was no overlap – they opted for strictly French and I diversified.  Once the list was compiled, I ranked the wines by table number and also by wine type and printed the grid that we each brought a copy with us.  Simple and efficient!

Here is our master list:

Super Tasting Wines – 101011

Being organized allowed us to taste all the wines we wanted to sample, it kept us focused and it avoided the familiar “where do you want to go next? I don’t know, where do you want to go next?” situation that arises from poor planning.

The 2011 Wine Library Super Tasting was a super event indeed and one I’ll be certain to attend in future years.  Thanks to the friendly staff of the Wine Library for being so helpful, as always and for making its patrons feel much pampered.

Cheers,

Veronique