Wine tasting in Valencia

Have you ever done a wine tasting? I hope you didn't have to spit out the wine.... we don't do that here! Apart from learning something about wine, a wine tasting should be fun, and spitting out wine is no fun at all, and absolutely unnecessary if you taste only 3-4-5 wines.

In 2013-14 I did the sommelier training here in Valencia – I'm specialised in Valencian wines. It was fun, and I learned a lot: about 6 months, 4 mornings a week, we had classes on viticulture, wine making, end especially the tasting of Valencian wines, from all Valencian wine regions... We also visited many wineries in the region. After the training, I started doing wine tastings with tourists, for local travel agencies; but after a while I thought "I can do that myself"... and now I have my own officially registered travel agency, specialised in ‘wine tourism’ – meaning that I do mainly wine tastings and wine tours, but certainly not only - look here for other excursions and tours I do.

I do my wine tastings in a cosy bar in El Carmen, the old centre of the city, and only with very good Valencian wines! The “standard wine tasting" is with a Cava ("Spanish Champagne"), a white and a red wine; one of each, and I find that the best, certainly with larger groups, as everyone has his/her own preferences, and like that everybody will taste something they like. Of course we can do another selection of wines if that is what the group wants - just let me know! We also do Cava tastings (comparing Cavas of different ages) and we could even use vermouth in tastings.

There is a lot of interest in wine tastings, we get people from many different countries, but above all from the UK and the Netherlands; people of all ages (above 18 usually...), small and large groups, couples, groups of friends, and a lot of hen party/stag night groups... I do wine tastings from one to more or less 50 people.

What do we do at a wine tasting? I usually explain first how to "taste" wine (look, smell, taste...), and then I talk about the wine you have in your glass, the grapes, a bit on the history of wine in Valencia (if people are interested...), I explain how Cava is made, how white and red wine are made, ... and I can tell a lot more but it all depends on what people want; some people have loads of questions about wine, others are less interested and prefer to talk about Valencia, what they should see, where to go for dinner, how it is to live here, and how I got to live in Valencia... which I won't tell you now - if you want to know you should come to one of my wine tastings, so you can ask...

Are you a wine fanatic or even an expert, and you really want to know more about Valencian wines, or would like to taste certain Valencian top wines, that's also possible of course! Just let me know...

If you really want to 'taste' wine, you shouldn't eat anything with it; food will change everything, affect your taste buds and how you perceive the wine. However, it's great to eat something that goes well with wine... Manchego cheese for example goes really well with Cava or white wine, and how about some Spanish iberico ham with the red wine? If you like, we can always organise something. Just ask.

You can read here in TripAdvisor what other people think of my wine tastings.

You could book your own (private) wine tasting through TripAdvisor, but also directly with me (which would be cheaper!); you could use the contact form, or email, or you can call / whatsapp me (+34 617 027 922), and get more information, or book directly.

I hope to hear from you soon!