True wine connoisseurs teach themselves to distinguish varietals, identify flawed bottles, and cry pure chardonnay. Become one with the grape with today's Groupon to Cellar Rat Wine Merchants. Choose between the following options:
- For $40, you get entry for two to a wine class (an $80 value).
- For $75, you get entry for four to a wine class (a $160 value).
View the class schedule here.
Cellar Rat Wine Merchants stocks more than 800 wines, a feat that has earned them a mention in Food & Wine magazine and Best Wine Shop from City Best in 2009. During the varied curriculum of classes, a staff of expert wine connoisseurs dispenses tastes of choice wines and grapey wisdom. Blind Tasting 101 challenges its guests to dispose of their preapprehensions about wine varieties and focus on the subtlest tones, while the Wine Essentials class focuses on the basics of tasting, including the five s's and which soup spoon to use for which varietal. $10 vs. $100 classes pit six wines ranging widely in price against each other in a blind taste test, and Old World vs. New World explores the distinctions between the European birthplaces of favorites varietals and their American, Australian, and New Zealand counterparts. Six wines dance across palates during the Sensory Evaluation Workshop, along with examples of 60 aromas commonly found when tasting, such as grape soda.
As participants will need full use of their senses to fully enjoy the experience, all students should avoid wearing distracting scents, quiet excessive chatter, and put their cell phones down for a nap before the tasting.
Cellar Rat Wine Merchants
Tired of chain wine stores schilling bad wines, two wine connoisseurs decided with a handshake and a bottle of Montrachet in October of 2005 to open a boutique wine shop. Cellar Rat Wine Merchants is the product of John Opelka and Ryan Sciara's commitment to good wines. Each of the wines on the shelf in Cellar Rat has been vetted by the staff—nothing is sold to the public unless the staff would drink it or use it as a substitute for milk in cereal. The resulting more than 800 wines, 70% of which are less than $20, make for tasty everyday and special-occasion beverages, as do the number of premium spirits and handcrafted brews stocked alongside the wine.
Cellar Rat’s vino experts do more than just discern the difference between good and bad wine; they also teach others how to do so during wine classes that delve into the intricacies of tasting. They even make pairing suggestions for the artisan cheeses, gourmet cured meats, and pate also sold in the boutique shop.
