It seems like every time I go into The Polo Grille, it is buzzing with Wine Divas. I’ve been with the company for about a year and a half and I just recently participated in a Wine Diva class at The Polo Grille. I definitely didn’t understand how truly cool this program is until I took this class.  

The Wine Divas started at The Polo Grille over six years ago. For the past six years, each and every class has been completely booked. There are over 800 official Wine Divas to date. Some Divas have even returned to take the class again, bringing new Divas with them.

The Wine Divas course is broken into three classes: Basic Whites, Basic Reds, and Old World vs. New World. The cost to join is $75 and includes all three 3 classes taught by industry experts, educational materials, wine sampling, appetizers and a Wine Diva membership card.  The membership card is valid for one year upon completion of the course gives members a 50% discount on bottles of wine and exclusive invitations to wine events throughout the year.

I must start out by telling you more about the industry experts that teach the class. Mary Horn and Laura Landoll generously share their knowledge with all of our divas. As Level II Sommliers and the only two women in the State of Ohio who have ever been eligible to sit for Master Sommlier, they are the best of the best. Their knowledge, humor and lack of “wine snobiness” make them excellent teachers. They have been teaching Wine Divas for 5 years now and we love having them as a part of this program.

The class is meant to be educational and informative, but it’s also meant to be very light and fun. We often have women get their friends together and make this a ladies-night-out. The classes start out with a drawing to pick the “wine diva of the day.” Mary and Laura spend some time talking about the topic of the class and then it’s on to the tasting. Mary and Laura do a great job making the class one big discussion about wine.

My favorite part about the class was the component tasting. We tasted four different liquids without knowing what they were, in order to taste the different components that are found in wine. The four components in wine are sweet/dry, acid, tannin and alcohol. Later, we tasted the liquids that represented these components and found out we drank sugar water solution for the sweet/dry taste, cream of tartar and water solution for acid, alum and water for tannin and diluted vodka for alcohol. It was interesting for me to see the reaction that my mouth and body had to each of these components. Afterwards, during the wine tasting portion of the class, I was actually able to pin-point a component in the different wines I tasted.

Whether you are looking for a fun girl’s night out or looking to learn more about your favorite after work hobby, I highly recommend you sign up for next season’s Wine Divas. It will be held in January, February and March of 2010. Sign-ups will be announced in November and you will want to hurry because these classes fill up fast!