Wine Club/Groups etc

[Rawshack]

Quick question to anyone who is in a wine club/tasting group etc or is looking to join one - what would you look for in the group/club and what would put you off joining?

Thoughts comments etc gratefully accepted

[TiggerK]

Hi rawshack.

we found people are all too busy to be regimented into 'joining' something and being ultra regular. We just amassed a group of 20 or so people (mostly through this forum and friends thereafter), who now communicate via a shared group email system and we each take turns to hold a monthly event. Each event is organised by a couple of members, the date is set, and whoever is keen comes along. We have used tools like surveymonkey to gather interest and some preferences as well.

There's a great variety of people, all at different levels of experience and budget, but we all have a goal of drinking good and interesting wines, and more than anything, a drive to expand our repertoire of knowledge from world regions, styles and aged characteristics of wine. It's a lot of fun (of course!)

People come and go, some are more regular than others, some prefer certain types of events, or price points. Some events have set the bar fairly high (Premium Shiraz night $60+), others have just asked for a nice wine from anywhere in the world (Pinot Noir afternoon). We get together for casual offline dinners sometimes and the monthly events range from a simple 'bring a plate of food and a bottle of wine on a theme to xxx's house' to a more formal restaurant meal at a fixed price with either wines pre-supplied for a fixed price, or more commonly BYO again to a theme. Been a great year so far!

Only thing that would put me off 'joining' a different group in theory would be getting some kind of snobby/snooty vibe from the organisers I suppose, or perhaps a focus on wines out of my league (e.g the Grand Cru club).

We've found the best thing is to not try and be too democratic in organising, it's just too hard, someone take charge for each event and propose it to the others. We sometimes get 10 people, sometimes get 20 (which can get tricky), but it's all good.

Cheers and good luck!
Tim

[rens]

I think TiggerK summerd it up nicely. For me something casual that you can attend when/where you want without any wine snobs.

[dave vino]

Yep Tim sums it up well.

Don't rely on a single person to organise everything for every meeting, the group needs to be able to function on general consensus.
Have a geographical similarity. So events can be placed conveniently for the majority of people.

[Michael McNally]

I think it needs to meet semi-regularly, which we don't do well here in Brisbane. Agree about the democracy thing, you can't please everyone. Just pick a date far enough in advance and stick to it.

Cheers

Michael

[Rawshack]

Thanks for the replies guys, they're all really useful and mirror in a way what I'm looking to do

Completely agree with the snobbery - unfortunately I've been to too many events that have been dictated by knowledge and/or money

I'm looking to start something in my area, something for people that genuinely love wine, don't care about a bottle price and also adhere to Johnson's view that 'we will always be students'

I've got a few ideas and will post them on here when they're a bit more focused

Once again, thanks - it's really good to hear these thoughts and comments