After a four month halt to our Fine Vintage, Ltd classes across the U.S. we are preparing to slowly restart in-person classes with strong health-conscious precautions in place. I have to confess, I’ve been going a little stir crazy without the regular opportunity to meet with many students and share our passion for wine. I’ve participated in a lot of webinars with winemakers and fellow educators around the world (who knew “wine Zoom” would be a thing?) and I’ve been keeping up with my own tasting groups online, and I’ve tried to keep up with winery releases and evaluating wines for our classes.

One particularly rewarding outcome of the quarantine (I consider it “sipping in place”) has been having the time to consult with Fine Vintage owner James Cluer, MW and several other colleagues on our lesson plans. We’ve updated our presentations, wine logs and video libraries to make the courses even more fun and I’m keen to share some new wines with you. In many cities in the U.S. we offer our courses at City Winery, the amazing urban winery/restaurant/concert space pioneered 10 years ago by Michael Dorf and now located in nearly a dozen cities across the country. Michael and his team are ready to slowly reopen some of the venues and so I am slowly (and very methodically!) offering some course dates knowing my colleagues at City Winery are putting stringent safeguards in place.

I’ll start by offering WSET Level 1 in Chicago next month: Level 1 will be a one day class in the spacious concert venue at City Winery Chicago on July 11 where we’ll have plenty of room to seat everyone at a safe distance from other students. This would be a great opportunity to share your passion for wine with others at a socially safe distance. For the full lineup of upcoming classes, check the Event Page on the website - everything is listed there.

You’ll need a mask of course, and we’ll do temperature checks on everyone coming to class as well as positioning the seats more than six feet apart - I’ve included a video below to show steps taken by City Winery to assure a safe reopening.

I look forward to welcoming our Chicago students back in August, The current plan is to offer two classes in Chicago (both the Fine Vintage Sensory Masterclass and our wonderful French Wine Professional two-day course). We’ll start classes in Boston in September, as well as debuting classes at the new City Winery in Washington, D.C; In October I’ll be teaching WSET classes in Atlanta and Miami, and then in November starting classes in Philadelphia as well as continuing classes in Miami. It’s a slow process of reopening, but one we are doing with care and most of all, with your safety in mind. I am ready to start tasting with you!

Wondering about the other steps we and City Winery are taking? Here’s a great video Michael put together to show what they are doing, not only in Boston but in all their venues as they slowly reopen:

Cheers!