Meet the man helping Birmingham get a taste – and nose – for wine

You may have enjoyed your fair share of pinot, merlot and chardonnay over the years. But have you ever given much thought to where the wine came from – and I don’t mean where it was purchased!

One Birmingham wine enthusiast is now on a mission to help people savour their favourite drink way beyond the name on the bottle.

Rob Price, owner of Birmingham Wine School, set up the company in 2008 and has enjoyed huge success over the past nine years even though he hasn’t always worked in the wine industry.

He said: “I was working for a large software company and wasn’t enjoying it and my boss told me that I should do something that I actually enjoy, so I thought, what do I enjoy? Football and wine.

“I was too old to play football so wine it was!

“I had done a lot of travelling, had worked in a vineyard at Napa Valley when I was 21 and thought I knew quite a lot about wine. I saw the opportunity to set up the wine school as I couldn’t find anyone else in Birmingham who was running educational wine courses on a regular basis.

“I thought, surely Birmingham wants to learn about wine?”

Birmingham Wine School now organises between three to seven events every week, with courses catering for the strictly amateur right up to connoisseurs.

Wine tasting sessions and experiences take place at city centre venues including Hotel Du Vin, The Old Joint Stock and The Wellington.

Wine SchoolClasses include food and wine pairing – including chocolate and wine and cheese and wine, red wine evenings, and dedicated sessions for different countries and regions. The school also offers cider and beer tasting specials.

Rob hosts a range of different events so that people can expand their knowledge of more than just wine.

He said: “Everybody knows how to drink wine, but when you are tasting wine it is a little different and you have to really think about it, look at it and smell it rather than just drink it.

“Most people know what they like, but they don’t know why they like it, they get used to only buying particular wines, but I guess what I do is try to expand their taste horizons and show them that there is more to wine than what they are used to.

“There are thousands of varieties of wine; rather than always buying merlot, pinot and chardonnay, what I am trying to do is by teaching people how to taste wine and learning to experiment, they will try more wine that they may not have considered beforehand.”

Birmingham Wine School welcomes people along for one-off occasions, but also hosts both four and eight week courses where participants can gain a wine qualification.

Rob said: “Most of our events are on an evening or on a Saturday. We try to make them all fun and interactive, but we also have more formal classes for those who want to take wine more seriously.”

“We have many different types of people who come along to our events, from young people who just want to try wine to older people who think they know all there is to know about wine already. We have people who come along for a special celebration and those who are committed to a course.”

But what does Rob love the most about wine?

“When it comes to wine, I love that each region has its own identity and people are so passionate about what they do,” he said.

“Wine has been part of history for so many years and I am always fascinated when you start putting food into the equation too.”

Birmingham Wine School’s evening sessions are around two hours, with day sessions lasting up to five hours. Prices depend on the theme for the evening.

 

 

 

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