The Charmer Sunbelt Group believes in providing knowledge and insight to our retail partners in an effort to increase their traffic and sales. To that end, CSG hosts seminars, trade shows, wine/spirits/beer dinners to educate and inform our customers. Increased awareness of product placement, presentation, promotion, and background allows service providers to provide extensive product knowledge and excellent qualilty of service to their customers and guests at any event or retail location offering wine or spirits. Below is a listing of events offered locally in markets covered by CSG.

Wine & Spirits Education Seminar Descriptions

The "Popcork” Experience™: Exploring Food and Wine Pairing
This fun and interactive seminar teaches the basics of food and wine pairing. Each person tastes from four to six different wine varietals along with popcorn that they flavor with things like fresh lemon, salt, sugar, and spice. It opens up their palates to the ways that food flavors can completely change the way wine and food taste together. For more on this seminar, click here!
(2 hours)

Selling Wine With Confidence
This seminar is designed for the catering sales person who is continually challenged with adding wine to an event. Guaranteed to increase your wine sales!

Professional Catering Wine Seminar
Written for the hotel catering and event manager, this comprehensive seminar combines key aspects of wine, including the sensory evaluation of wine, the palate calibration and aroma wheel exercises, adding wine to catering events, and marketing wine in catering, and ends with a tasting and food-and-wine pairing segment called The “Popcork” Experience™.
A must for anyone in the catering and event planning industry.
(3 hours)

Server Sales Skills: Enhancing Server Performance in Casual Dining
Geared toward the casual dining server, this seminar teaches wait staff the skills to sell wines and spirits effectively, with persuasive and suggestive selling techniques and instruction on selling wine with confidence.
(1 hour)

Bartender Training: Knowledge & Skill
This seminar is jam-packed with information and can be segmented into several sessions based on the time allotted. This seminar begins with spirits basics, including how spirits are made from fermentation to distillation, covering both white and brown spirit categories. Also included are sections on bartender core competencies, bar set-up and maintenance, suggestive selling, responsible beverage service, back bar management, inventory management, and mixology.
(1-3 hours)

Wine Brand Knowledge
A comprehensive tasting of your choice of wines from your list of wine by the glass or bottle, to include: how to taste, key terms used in describing wines, information on the growing region, and winery and winemaker/producer. Recommended maximum from six to eight wines per session.
(1-1.5 hours)

A Greener Vision
With the world moving toward "green," let us show you how to incorporate environmentally friendly wines and spirits into your beverage program for restaurants and catering. We will navigate through the variety of terms and farming practices and show you ways to market the green brands on your list.

Other Popular Training Topics

Viticulture, Viniculture and Sensory Evaluation
Learn about the science and practice of grape growing and winemaking, as well as the effects that soil, weather, oak, and winemakers have on the final wine that is produced and bottled. This seminar includes the Palate Calibration and Aroma Wheel exercises and can include a tasting.
(2-3 hours)

Champagne and Sparkling Wine
Learn about the history, mysteries and methods of how to make this wonderful, bubbly beverage. Program includes a tasting of sparklers from your wine list.

Tour de France – 101
There is so much to know about France and its wine history. This course is an introduction to the basics of the French wine-growing regions, including Burgundy and Bordeaux. You will learn about the grape types, terrain and history of the areas in what some consider to be the greatest wine-producing country in the world.

100 Years of Port
Learn about this much-loved and fascinating fortified wine. The history, people and terrain of Portugal are all what make this a unique beverage. Includes a comparison tasting of ports from the world-famous port houses of Portugal.

The Wines of California & the Pacific Northwest
Pinot Noirs from Around the World
The Wines of Australia & New Zealand
South America: The Wines of Chile, Argentina & So. Africa
The Wines of Spain & Portugal
The Wines of Italy
The World of Spirits: White & Brown
Design Your Own: Combine any of the topics for a custom training!

Contact: scharny@c-sg.com for more information on any of these programs.