The 5 Best Virtual Wine Tastings For Team Building
Virtual wine tastings are one of the most popular team-building activities.
Online wine tasting events with The Lush Life (starting at $95/pp) are the perfect way to treat your corporate groups to a lively, interactive, and delicious hour with a professional sommelier.
Our virtual events have been featured in Fortune and The Huffington Post, and our team is led by Head Sommelier Sarah Tracey.
Virtual tastings are a unique experience designed to foster team bonding or client entertaining in a high-energy and memorable way (fun facts and trivia included!). We ship everything needed for the virtual event directly to your participants for an easy, convenient way to host a great event.
Our Top 5 Virtual Wine Tastings:
Food and Wine Pairing
We have a whole array of experiences that include food pairings in the tasting kit! Enjoy wine and cheese tasting, wine and chocolate tasting, wine and charcuterie boards, and even our fun Munchies Pairing, featuring wines paired with your favorite sweet and savory snacks like popcorn, potato chips, and more treats.
2. Regional Tasting
Pick a favorite wine region, and we'll focus your tasting around those wines. Craving a trip to Italy, Spain, or France? Opening a great bottle of wine from these wine-producing countries is the easiest way to travel the world without leaving your living room. Take a virtual journey to sunny California wine country and explore Napa Valley, the Sonoma Coast, and Paso Robles through your glass-- or the majestic mountains of Oregon and Washington in our Pacific Northwest tasting. Our regional wine tastings go in-depth about the wine region, the local history, culture, lifestyle, and suggested food pairings. Treat your palate and imagination to an adventure! Regional cheese pairings can be added to any tasting format.
3. Intro to White Wines, Red Wines, or Rosés
We'll assemble various wines into tasting kits and ship them directly to your attendees. Some groups might prefer a lineup of all white wine, all red wine, or even a selection of different rosés! This fun format gets into the nuances of each style or variety. The number of wines can be customized for your group, but most groups choose a selection of either three or four for the best experience.
4. Bubbles and Truffles
Our signature program: a flight of three sparkling wines, each paired with decadent chocolate truffles! We'll explore Champagne, Cava, and Prosecco and discover what makes a perfect chocolate pairing.
5. Women-Made Wines
This is a great option for a digital tasting experience, whether you're looking for a virtual event for Women's History Month or any time of year! According to Forbes, less than 14% of wines have a woman as their Head Winemaker. Let's toast those who have reached that milestone.
Book a Virtual Wine Tasting Now!
Our Virtual Wine Tastings start at $95/pp, and we’ll ship participants everything they need for the experience and gather on Zoom (or, virtual event platform of your choice). Fill in your info below, and we’ll send a quote within one business day.
Why Choose a Virtual Wine Tasting for Your Next Happy Hour?
In today's digital age, where remote work is becoming increasingly prevalent, finding effective ways to foster team bonding and morale is essential for any organization. If traditional team-building activities are not feasible due to geographical constraints, a virtual tasting experience might be the ticket!
A virtual wine tasting is a great way to bond with colleagues and explore new wines, learn from wine specialists, and enjoy the comfort of your home. With its interactive format, flexibility, and focus on creating a positive experience, it's no wonder that virtual wine tastings are becoming increasingly popular as the best team-building activity for modern organizations.
Virtual wine tasting is an activity that allows you to learn something new, connect over delicious bottles, make great memories, and gain wine smarts to use for life! Since so many gatherings occur virtually over video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, hosting a corporate event with a sommelier is an easy way to make a big impression!
Here are a few reasons why wine tastings make great virtual experiences:
Virtual wine tastings are a convenient way to include participants from all over the country.
With a virtual wine tasting, you can include everyone on your team, regardless of location. If your group is primarily remote or hybrid, one of the greatest advantages of a virtual wine tasting experience is that great wines can be enjoyed from the comfort of your own home. There's no need to worry about transportation or dressing up; the virtual format gives your corporate team a fun activity to look forward to right from their living room. Through video calls and interactive tasting sessions, virtual wine tastings provide a platform for team members to engage with one another in a relaxed and enjoyable setting. From discussing tasting notes to sharing favorite wines, participants can forge connections and create positive associations with their colleagues, strengthening team dynamics.
With The Lush Life as your virtual wine-tasting host, we will connect everyone with the same wines so the shared experience and memories can reach across the miles. In the event of international guests (or the few states that don't allow wine shipping), we can work with local retailers to help find similar wines. A virtual wine tasting with a sommelier expert is also a great way to create a memorable client-entertaining experience. It's a memorable virtual event that doesn't require your guests to worry about hiring a babysitter or driving home safely. It's the ultimate in convenience. Whether your corporate group is already wine lovers or has never stepped foot in a tasting room, our happy hours are always fun, informative, and interactive.
Virtual wine tasting experiences are an excellent way to learn about wine.
Our team at The Lush Life, led by Head Sommelier Sarah Tracey, has hosted hundreds of virtual wine tastings-- so we know firsthand that the experience of learning about wine is not negatively impacted by switching to a virtual vs. in-person format. In some ways, it's a more effective learning experience. Tasters who may have been too shy to ask questions aloud in a large seminar can pop them in the chat (even privately to the wine educator host).
The fact that everyone has some leftover wine after the virtual wine tasting event means they can continue to practice tasting the wines independently. Experimenting with pairing the wine with different foods, trying it out of varying glassware types, and tasting it at various temperatures are valuable learning tools you don't get while spending ten minutes with a wine during an in-person tasting. We can even provide a link to the video replay for the virtual wine tastings we produce so tasters can revisit the guided tasting wherever they like! The replay can also be shared with anyone who couldn't attend the virtual event.
Our wine experts provide valuable insights into different varieties of wines, tasting notes, and food pairings, enhancing the overall experience and deepening participants' appreciation for wine. We provide custom tasting packets with all of the info about each wine and even bonuses like a glossary of wine terms and a food pairing cheat sheet. Participants will leave the session knowing more about wine than they ever imagined they'd learn in 60 minutes—and having fun while doing it!
Virtual wine tastings are a great way to connect groups of any size online.
Unlike in-person tastings, virtual wine tastings offer flexibility in terms of group size and the selection of wines. By now, we've all been to at least one virtual happy hour that quickly devolved into chaos, with everyone talking over each other and no actual format. Unfortunately, the spontaneity of mingling at an in-person cocktail party or happy hour does not translate well into a virtual event. You genuinely need a structure, activity, and a host/moderator to keep everything flowing, ensure all participants are engaged, and foster connection and interaction in a more organized way. Virtual wine tastings have enough of a framework to give a valuable online experience, with enough room for organic moments of connection and plenty of laughs.
Whether your team consists of a small group of wine enthusiasts or a larger corporate group, virtual tasting options are available to accommodate your needs. At The Lush Life, we have facilitated and hosted groups as small as 8 and up to 300 participants.
Cheers to a great time with your team, one sip at a time. Reach out to get started with your Virtual Event today!
Virtual Wine Tastings with The Lush Life: Frequently Asked Questions
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-Wine/Gourmet Goods selection services: our tasting kits have everything participants need
-All planning, logistics, shipping, tracking services
-Event hosting services from head sommelier Sarah Tracey (or another host from our team of experts, pending availability)
-PDF Tasting Guide, with detailed wine notes/cocktail recipes, step-by-step instructions, suggested food pairings, and extra bonuses. We’ll include your company logo if desired.
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We can host up to 100 screens via our ZOOM account. If you have another preferred videoconferencing platform, you are welcome to host it there. We are happy to include as many guests as your platform allows.
We have hosted group sizes from 8-300 guests.
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We will coordinate your wine/spirits order through licensed retailers who will process and ship your selection, in compliance with alcohol shipping laws.
Alcohol cannot legally be shipped to P.O. boxes, and someone 21+ must be present to receive the package. There are a handful of states that do not allow out-of-state alcohol shipments, in this case, we may coordinate delivery from a local retailer where possible. Final shipping fees are calculated by the retailer during order processing.
Although we primarily serve the US, International orders may be possible upon request and subject to a service fee. We do not provide products within Canada.
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You are welcome to choose your own wines from a vendor of your choice and our team will research and present the wines during the event.
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When you book your event, we will provide a spreadsheet template for you to gather your guests’ shipping addresses. We will confirm your product selection and submit confirmed guests' shipping info no later than 2 weeks in advance of the event date. Please note: you will be billed for the number of guests that are confirmed 2 weeks prior to the event. Retailers cannot guarantee shipping timelines for orders placed less than 14 days in advance of the event date. Customer service support regarding product shipping and tracking will be provided.
The Lush Life is not responsible for delayed or lost packages.
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Once orders have been placed, kits will be legally shipped directly from the retailer to all guests in compliance with alcohol shipping laws.
If event is cancelled with less than 14 days notice, a $500 cancellation fee will be charged. We accept payment via bank transfer, credit card, or check.
Success Stories
“Amazing! Our company hired Sarah for a wine tasting event and it was a very memorable experience. She was absolutely a gem to work with leading up to our event sourcing different wine options based on our taste palette and price range. She was also instrumental in getting the right vendors as we had a couple of hiccups with shipping and resources due to Covid. She was very responsive and so easy to work with. On the day of our event she was a true professional interacting with a bunch of strangers and avoiding the awkward silent gaps. To be honest there wasn’t any. She made the experience really interactive and engaging with a diverse group of people. I highly recommend her. We will definitely be looking to her again for future programs. Thank you!”
“This past holiday season, I planned a virtual wine tasting for 200 clients and decided to go with Sarah as our sommelier after speaking to several others. I am so glad I did because we have heard nothing but rave reviews! Our clients were so impressed with how knowledgeable Sarah was and the fantastic wine selection. As the event planner, I was apprehensive about a virtual event of this size and importance, but Sarah put me at ease. I would not hesitate to do another event with Sarah, virtually or in person!”
“I engaged Sarah to do a guided wine tasting and cooking demo for a corporate virtual event I hosted. She was beyond organized, knowledgeable and helped us with everything— from getting wine shipment organized to curating the wine to delivering a stellar tasting. My team and I will work with her again in a heartbeat and recommend her to others seeking unique virtual experiences.”
“Sarah hosted a great virtual event! She was extremely helpful and very knowledgeable from the beginning to the end. The wine tasting was a very fun and extremely informative, everyone learned something new during each tasting and could not stop talking about it. The events went so well that word got around the office and now we are having Sarah come back to do a virtual tasting with other members of the company. Thank you again, Sarah, for everything, this is the morale boost we all needed during these uncertain times! We can not wait to have you back!”
“We were looking for a corporate end of summer celebration and Sarah more than delivered! Our virtual wine tasting was well organized, informative, and most importantly, fun. Everyone on the team had a great time and raved about it for weeks. I highly recommend Sarah Tracey - she is a delight to work with!”
“We hired Sarah for a team happy hour / Wine 101 course and were so happy with the results! Sarah made coordinating logistics (planning, finding and shipping the wine, etc) a breeze. We all learned something new during the class and had a lot of fun. As the coordinator of the event it was incredible to have someone step in and take care of the details. Would highly recommend!”
“Our company had a tremendous experience with Sarah and The Lush Life. Her presentation was engaging, fun, interactive and enjoyed by all. The wines were all delicious and curated with our company in mind. Sarah was very responsive and encouraged questions and had great recommendations for pairings, products and additional new wines to try.”