Vinopedagogy: definition

What do you call what you do?

I have been teaching wine tasting in English for over twenty years. To Americans, Australians, Canadians, British, Singaporeans. To complete beginners and to seasoned collectors. In cellars, in vineyards, around tasting tables in Beaune.

And in twenty years, not once have I had a single word to describe my profession precisely.

"Wine educator" is the closest, but it sounds like a school subject. "Wine teacher" feels too classroom. "Tasting instructor" misses the sensory depth of what actually happens. "Wine professional" could mean anything from winemaker to sommelier to importer.

The English-speaking wine world has built extraordinary institutions: the WSET, the Court of Master Sommeliers, the Wine Scholar Guild. It has certification programmes, structured curricula, rigorous standards. And yet it never forged one word for the discipline itself.

That word is vinopedagogy.

Definition

Vinopedagogy (noun) - from Latin vinum (wine) and Greek paidagôgia (the art of guiding, of educating) - the set of methods, practices and approaches aimed at transmitting the knowledge of wine, and in particular the art of tasting, to an amateur or learning audience.

What vinopedagogy is

Vinopedagogy is the structured, intentional teaching of wine tasting. It involves a progression, a method, concrete exercises, and a clear learning objective. Its goal is not to produce wine, nor to serve it, but to teach people how to truly understand what is in their glass.

What vinopedagogy is not

• It is not oenology: the science of making wine

• It is not sommellerie: the professional art of serving and recommending wine

• It is not a wine tasting evening: enjoyable, but without pedagogical structure or progression

What vinopedagogy looks like in practice

Over twenty years of teaching, I have found that vinopedagogy takes many forms, but always shares the same core intention: building genuine, lasting understanding in the taster.

Blind tasting as the foundation

Every session I teach is built around blind tasting. Not as a party trick, not as a competition, but as the only truly objective way to engage with a wine. When the label is hidden, the price is unknown, and the reputation of the producer is irrelevant, something shifts. The taster stops looking for external validation and starts listening to their own palate.

That shift, from passive consumer to active, confident taster, is what vinopedagogy is for.

Sensory exercises that go beyond aromas

Much wine education focuses on aroma recognition. Vinopedagogy goes further. Some of the most valuable exercises I run are about flavour: learning to distinguish acidity from astringency, to identify bitterness. These are sensations everyone experiences, but almost nobody learns to name. Once named, they become tools.

Tasting where the wine was born

The most powerful sessions happen outside. At Sensation Vin, we take guests into the vineyards of the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits, in a four-wheel drive, into the parcels themselves, and taste the wines in the landscape that produced them. No classroom, no table, no walls. Just the vine, the soil, the glass, and the wine.

That is vinopedagogy at its most immediate.

Why this word matters internationally

In France, my partner Damien Delattre has proposed the French equivalent: oenopédagogie on his site damiendelattre.com. Two words, two languages, one discipline.

But the need for this word feels particularly acute in the English-speaking world. Wine education in English has grown enormously over the past thirty years. It has become global, diverse, creative. Brilliant people are doing extraordinary work teaching wine tasting to audiences on every continent.

And yet when those people are asked what they do, they still reach for approximations.

Vinopedagogy gives them a word. A precise word, that distinguishes what they do from making wine, from serving wine, from simply drinking wine together. A word that says: this is discipline. It has depth, it has method, it has its own professionals and its own evolving practice.

A word to share, not to own

I am not proposing vinopedagogy as a brand or a trademark. I am proposing it because it needs to exist, in English, in the global conversation about wine, tasting, and the transmission of sensory knowledge.

If you teach wine tasting in any form: structured courses, immersive experiences, sensory workshops, vineyard visits with a learning intention, this word belongs to you too.

Use it. It is yours.

Céline Dandelot - Wine Expert & Educator, Vinopedagogue since 2002  - Beaune, Burgundy