[GeekDinner-planning] Wine tasting

[Jonathan Hitchcock]

Hi,

I mailed the Pieter dude and told him the format that we've been using
for the GeekDinners, and asked him what his format was going to be.

His response is below (and my original mail quoted below that).

So, it seems that if we're going to have him do his tasting, we have to
sacrifice people having the talks?  It becomes less a GeekDinner, and
more a bunch of GeekDinner attendees having a wine tasting.

I don't know what the rest of you think, but I would like to stick to
the original format for at least a few more dinners - then we can start
changing if people want to.  It's too early to change the format
suddenly, sort of thing.
Or, we can have GeekDinner be a GeekDinner, with people giving talks,
and branch out and have other events at other times - the wine tasting
sounds great, but we could do it separately, at a different time.

(Also, I did promise the GetWine guys that we would let them know when
the next GeekDinner is, and they're keen to give a talk, and it'll be a
bit ungrateful if we just ignore them now?)

Any thoughts?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: GeekDinner July <urgent>
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:23:03 +0200
From: Pieter du Toit <pieter at cederbergwine.com>
To: Jonathan Hitchcock <jonathan.hitchcock at gmail.com>

Jonathan,

I think when Johann visited the farm, he saw the opportunity - which is
good. Let me explain how we do it and why?

Many of our wines our sold out, we are not in the position to give away
wines any more, or just sponcer for the sake of the cause, which I am
sure you'll understand from a business point. So, if we see a nice group
of people in one room together, we will offer them a tasting, no charge!
There is no way that I can do a quickie and present three or four wines,
it has to be five to seven wines - to give you a good idea of who we are
and to bring accross the message of our winery. We always start the
tasting with an intro, this can be 5 - 60 minute - all depends. BUT the
minute the tasting starts, you look at a min five minutes per wine...

So let us say: 5 wines x 7 minutes (incl pouring and tasting and a short
discussion) + the intro, we are looking at 40 minutes minimum - but it
will be more.We normally ask that we kick of with the tasting because
once you start drinking mixers and other alchohols you interfere with
your tasting abilities. Snacks and strong dishes also interfere. Not if
the wines were chosen to go with certain food, a paring the chef and
wine person will do before hand.

So Jonathan, with all of this in our pipes, how do we smoke it? I am
very relaxed about this. It is what I do for a living. We have no
problem if it does not fit into your plans at this stage. BUT I do
suggest that we discuss this and may be that one evening we do a decent
wine tasting, a wine and food evening, and I'll help you choose a venue.

What do you think?

Pieter


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Hitchcock" <jonathan.hitchcock at gmail.com>
To: "Pieter du Toit" <pieter at cederbergwine.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: GeekDinner July <urgent>


> Hi Pieter,
>
> I'm not sure if you know the format of the GeekDinners.  We normally
> start off with a few drinks and socializing, and then take our places at
> the tables.  We order our food from the waiters, and then have about two
> short talks.  The food is then brought out, and we eat, and we have
> another two or three talks, and then dessert, after which we open up the
> floor for anybody else who wants to talk.
>
> The talks are about five minutes long, with three minutes of questions.
> This keeps people from boring everybody with twenty minutes of talking
> about microchips, or something, and means we get a good overview of the
> topic.
>
> What is your planned format?  I mean, how will your tasting fit in with
> the dinner?
>
> Thanks!
> Cheers,
> -Jonathan