Wine Sensory Experience

Highly highly recommend you do this first thing when you come wine tasting. I am a fairly sophisticated wine drinker and my girlfriend more of a neophyte but we both learned a tremendous amount at this class. Culinary Institute of America chefs come here as do sommeliers because of the incredible olfactory experience that has been set up. Proprietor is friendly and engaging and did a custom session for us to fit into our schedule. Our scores in the new 20 point scale were 8 and 10 which I guess is still pretty good!

What a fun and educational experience! This class is great if you want to learn more about wine and the nuances with smell/​taste. T’Anne chats it up with you first and then lets you go off on your own to smell the various glasses with it’s individual aroma and you need to guess what it is. It’s nicely broken down on how she structures the various aromas. You get to taste wine at the end with your new found wine knowledge. T’Anne is a lovely lady and super nice.
Class was $ 45 pp.

Wow, that was difficult! But lots of fun! My wife and I and another couple did the Wine Sensory Experience together and had a blast! T’Anne puts on a great class and even though we were not able to identify most of the smells we all learned some new things about wine tasting and wine making. It is unbelievably frustrating to so clearly recognize a smell but to not be able to identify it! T’Anne has a ton of knowledge having grown up in a wine making family and we really enjoyed the class and talking to her. The class is held in the W.H. Smith tasting room and included a tasting of their wines afterwards — all very good. Highly recommended.
Just wanted to add that T’Anne was having some issues with her website provider when we were there. Looks like the site is still down, but don’t let that stop you, she is still conducting the classes. Just give her a call at the W.H. Smith tasting room.

Really great service, friendly and fun $ 10 wine taste.

My friend suggested that we take this Wine Sensory Experience Class since we did the same things in wine country so often and this was something to accentuate our usual wine-​tastings.
This class was fantastic on so many levels:
— This sensory class introduced us to all the many notes that make up a great wine.
We got to smell 36 different types of fruits, herbs, spices etc. that can be identified in red and white wines through the entire wine process.
The class presented 8 experiences:
1) Poster Aromas: different smells/​notes that make up wines
2) Barrel Aging Characteristics
3) Sensory Experience– American vs French Oak
4) Bottle Age Characteristics
5) Characteristics of Pinot Noir
6) Characteristics of Cabernet Sauvignon
7) Wine Glass Comparison
8) Chocolate Tasting
— The owner/​teacher was very friendly, warm and was helpful and not snobbish at all.
— I’d highly recommend this class to anyone who’s remotely interested in wines and especially if you live in the Bay Area and come up to wine country often. The class starts at 10a and lasts 2 hours and it’s a great experience before starting your day wine-​tasting at various vineyards. It’ll help you think about your tastings so much more.
— The class includes a tasting of 6 W.H. Smith wines at the end of the experience and they were paired with a generous platter of proscuitto, brie, goat cheese spread, artichoke cheese spread and smoked almonds
Some of the smells from the sensory experience were easy and predictable; some were surprising and definitely different. Shockingly (or maybe because I eat so much and cook with various ‘exotic’ spices), i got 19 of the smells correct! Apparently, that’s one of the highest scores anyone’s ever scored (my sore loser pompous friend who works in the wine industry asked if i cheated. sorry dude, i didn’t need to. and i’m not sorry that you only got 15 correct.)
A good value for $ 35. The tasting room is located on the main strip of Calistoga town (Lincoln Ave). I might check out the advance class at some point!

I’m not a wine drinker at all, but I stopped here while in Calistoga last weekend. The owner is super friendly and chatty. The layout of the place is pretty cool and there is also some great art on the wall. She taught us about the wine we were drinking and made suggestions even though I hardly ever drink wine. I’d recommend this place for anyone in the area. Oh and because her customer service was so good I even bought a bottle of wine.

I went here with a group last weekend and had a great time. We were initially looking to wine taste while staying in Calistoga but since no one wanted to drive we did this instead. I wasn’t sure what to expect but it turned out to be very cool. As the name suggests, it’s less a tasting and more a sensory class. The owner runs it and she was really nice and completely unpretentious. There were also yummy snacks, and a chocolate and cheese tasting component. When the wine came out towards the end it was good and the pours were generous. A fun experience!