This section is extracted from Part 4: Where to Next?, Chapter 19: Further Wine Education, under the section Guided Gustatory Tours. (Please note that this is draft material and may contain grammatical and other errors.)
Guided Gustatory Tours
Continued reading and research using the resources described above provides an ongoing improvement in our cognitive wine knowledge which is critical to improving wine drinking enjoyment and appreciation. But that on its own is not pleasurable unless you actually do some wine drinking along the way!
Earlier in the book, we discussed a number of different methods
to gain wine drinking experience as part of our everyday existence. But there exist some other avenues for
concentrated and intensive wine education which comprises eating and drinking
great wines in great locations. More and
more food and wine tours are being organized to provide ‘extreme’ gustatory
experiences embodied as vacations. These
can be in duration from several days to several weeks or longer. They usually involve traveling to a place
relevant to the food and wine that will be discussed and consumed. Many occur in exotic places such as Tuscany
or Provence or take place on cruise ships featuring ‘intensive’ cooking or wine
tasting courses that are great fun and great education.
While you can select your own destinations and visit different
wineries and partake in different tasting experiences, having an expert aware
of the region, its food and wine styles, and with access to the best venues and
instructors can be a real help; both in terms of what you learn and how
enjoyable it is. You can query online or
visit a travel agent find out more about these types of wine educational tours
and vacations to start to search for and plan available options.
I am not going to provide links or names as I am more
familiar with the growth of this concept for ‘extreme gustatory vacations’ than
I am knowledgeable with the increasing number of providers in this space. You can easily find out more by looking
online or talking with a travel agent. However, I will use one provider I am familiar
with and can recommend to illustrate the services and options available. On theRoad Culinary Adventures (www.ontheroadculinaryadventures.com/)
combines a love of food and wine with a love of travel to provide culinary
travel adventures. These include
several-day events hosted in the US and longer overseas trips, including
cruises.
On the Road Culinary Adventures
combine a relaxing vacation experience which focuses on teaching you more about
food and wine through providing a tremendous culinary experience complimented
by increasing your cognitive knowledge through lectures, instruction by guest
chefs, and a hands-on teaching experience where you are preparing the food and
the meals under the tutelage of culinary experts. I know the owners from having worked together
with them in the corporate world, and know they have exquisite taste and
knowledge when it comes to food and wine and a passion to share that with
others.
Gustatory vacations can provide intense and in-depth experiences
in a relaxing environment. You should
come back from this type of experience with deeper knowledge and increased
abilities to recreate similar events at home and share with friends. A gustatory vacation also increases your
visibility of what is possible and heightens your expectations of how to be
involved and even host similar events in the future.
 |
| Visit the fish market with the Executive Chef of the Quest in Kusadasi, Turkey followed by a cooking demo with lunch |
Steve Shipley
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