Wine in the Kitchen DVDs – Fun, Girly Teaching Tools for Home Wine Tastings

Yesterday I had a chance to meet Calgary's Wine Girl Erin Rosar (pictured) and catch a screening of the second episode of her new DVD series Wine in the Kitchen. It's a cute idea: a DVD designed to enable chick-friendly home tasting parties.

The first episode, which is a general beginner's introduction to wine, comes in a pink hatbox-shaped kit. It includes the DVD, an instruction booklet, a set of cloth bags for masking the bottles, tasting notepads and pink pencils (personally sharpened by Rosar's three sons). In case the party host wants to do a blind tasting along with the guests, the instructions include a "spoiler alert" shopping list that can be handed, sealed, to the wine clerk, with a suggested price range.

We guests in the intimate screening room at The Spoke Club got to see episode two, the bubbly episode, while sipping a cheerful Cava. I really liked the straightforward explanations about how champagne (and other sparkling wine) is made, and the tips on how to read labels. I suspect anyone but a trained sommelier would come away from a screening having learned something new about wine, but Rosar's commentary just seems like a casual girlfriend's chat in the kitchen

We repaired to a separate room after the screening for some lovely snacks and some true champagne. Perhaps my favourite part of the whole session was Rosar's list of reasons that justify opening up a bottle of sparkling wine, which includes the following:

1. Your lipstick is the right shade today
2. Your kids went to school
3. You got two green lights in a row

In short, clearly Rosar's a bubbly fan. She's certainly convinced me I should find more reasons to stop thinking of champers as a special-occasions drink and start finding more reasons to enjoy a glass. The Wine in the Kitchen starter kit and DVD is available online and in certain Toronto-area retail stored in the $55 price range. More episodes are planned, including one on beer, one on food pairings and – what will no doubt turn out to be a popular choice – one on wine with chocolate.