Expanding the sample
Central Ohio vendors embrace trend of welcoming, affordable wine tastings
Ten bottles of wine lined an outdoor bar at the District Pourhouse — five chilled, five not; a bottle of sparkling to start and a sweet wine to finish.
Under string lights and a canopy shading the summer evening sun in the South Campus Gateway, a couple of
tasters approached with glasses outstretched.
In white Wayfarer sunglasses and Converse sneakers, Landon Proctor gently poured each of them a sample of a Picpoul de Pinet. The white wine comes from a grape grown in the south of France, he said.
“This reminds some people of roses, rocks and lime juice,” he explained.
If tasters want to know more than that, great, Proctor said during one of the 10 for $10 wine tastings he hosts regularly around the city. He is ready to go encyclopedia on them if they want. But if they just want to swish and sip casually while catching up with friends, that’s OK, too.
These sorts of approachable, affordable and welcoming
wine tastings have grown in popularity in recent years, Columbus wine professionals say.
The Refectory, a Northwest Side restaurant known for its fine dining and award-winning wine cellars, has evolved a variety of tastings. These now include what owner Kamal Boulos describes as beginner, approachable formats in which people can try different wines for an affordable price, such as their Saturday Samplings that range from about $12 to $15 per person for sampling five to six wines.
Meza Wine Shop in uptown Westerville also hosts regular tasting events, including casual, Friday night tastings in which attendees can try five wines for $10, and monthly tastings with 10 wines for $15.
“We really try to aim the focus on quality wine for the price, and giving everyone the opportunity to try some new stuff,” owner Tatjana Brown said.
Proctor said his efforts are the result of a culture in the wine world that he didn’t find particularly welcoming when he was a graduate student in mathematics at Ohio State University studying infinitary combinatorics.
“It felt like it was a closed club, and I wasn’t invited,” said Proctor, 38, of North Linden. Tastings were nitpicky, full of people who would correct others, he recalled. “Very insider-y, very gatekeeper-y.
“I was like, this is just booze, man!” Proctor said. “No one gets like this about beer.
“There’s this wonderful stuff that’s so accessible to so many people,” he said. “And I just felt like there needed to be a little bit better of an ambassador.”
Proctor wasn’t setting out to be that person, necessarily. His “tastings” began while he was working for wine distributors, pouring samples in corners of restaurants or bars. By then, he had left his graduate program and was working in the wine world full time.
He started organizing tastings in earnest around 2010, hoping to dispel some of the elitism he saw in the wine community.
The first 10 for $10 wine tasting was held in April 2014 at Rehab Tavern in Franklinton. Five years later, his casual neighborhood tastings, marketed on Facebook, can be found scattered around Columbus in restaurants and other venues multiple times a week, still offering 10 quality wines for $10. Some of the more popular tastings can attract up to 80 people.
“I know, like, nothing about wine, and I’m also on that grad-student budget, said Emily Turnquist, a 22-year-old student in the College of Medicine at Ohio State, who has been to a handful of Proctor’s tastings. “So I like the 10 for 10 because it’s cheap, and you can try 10 different wines.”
Megan Kruze, a recent Ohio State graduate from North Royalton in northeastern Ohio, attended her first 10 for $10 tasting last week with a friend. The pair came prepared with their own snacks of cheese, crackers, grapes and apple slices.
“I’m someone who’s still testing,” Kruze, 22, said. “I love trying new things, so I have yet to establish something I really, truly like.”
Meza’s Brown said that wine can be intimidating to beginners and casual sippers. Still, the younger generation of wine drinkers tends to be more open to tasting new things and learning about them, she explained.
“Younger people are becoming more interested in not just drinking for social reasons but learning a little bit more about what they’re drinking,” she said.
Boulos said wine has become a more everyday beverage in our culture, driven by natural curiosity.
“It’s just been a natural progression in our culture,” he said. “Wanting to know more about the foods that we eat and where they come from, and wanting to know about the wines that we drink and where they come from, and why they taste that way in this particular region or someplace else.”
Proctor said he isn’t sure how his 10 for $10 wine tastings will evolve in the years to come, but he isn’t worried about the future of wine; it has been around for thousands of years.
“People are still very excited about it,” Proctor said. “I don’t think wine is on its way out. So I think there’s a long, healthy future for what we’re doing.”