How to Cancel a Wine Tasting

Wine tastings may be highly anticipated events.

As the United States wine market continues to expand, partly in response to the increasingly high quality of domestic wines, wine tasting events have grown in popularity. Formerly the province of elite social organizations, wine tastings are now offered everywhere from the local Costco to the trendiest urban wine bar. Organizing a tasting requires securing wine providers and a venue, inviting guests and hiring serving and cleaning staff. Canceling a tasting requires informing all parties in a timely manner.

Instructions

1. Contact the wine vendor(s) to let them know you will not be needing any product. If the wines have already been sent, ask the vendor if he will accept a return shipment. If the answer is no, you may have to hold onto the wines or find a storage location for them until you can reschedule or sponsor a new event.

2. Contact the venue to cancel the booking. If you have booked a low- or no-cost venue, you may have to deal only with grumbling. But many paid venues charge a fee for last-minute event cancellations. Try to negotiate your way out of such a fee if you can.

3. Contact any hired staff. A paycheck is a paycheck, and it will not be fair to the wait and cleaning staff you hired to show up for a job only to find the event has been canceled. Contact the staff in every way possible -- by phone, via email and/or via the website through which you may have hired them.

4. Get in touch with the guests and potential guests. If the tasting was by invitation only, you should be able to call and email the guest list. If the guests were invited via an online event site, announce the cancellation via the site. If your event was announced to the public, publish a cancellation announcement if possible. In any case, post notices at the venue on the originally scheduled event date to notify any stragglers of the cancellation. If you are rescheduling the event, let potential guests know how you will contact them with the new date and time.

Tips & Warnings

• If guests have paid a tasting fee in advance, arrange to refund their money or offer them credit toward the rescheduled or other future tasting event.

References

• Zvents: Cancelled Wine Tasting
• Wine Enabler: How to Organize a Wine Tasting Party