Private Wine Education · Blind Tasting · Cellar Advisory
Independent wine guidance tailored to your palate, your collection, and your goals.
Randy Chilcote
Sommelier
WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines
What Randy does
Three ways to work together
Private Blind Tastings
Private, guided blind-tasting experiences for individuals and small groups. Learn how to assess wine systematically, identify key characteristics and understand how variety, climate, winemaking and age reveal themselves in the glass.
The art of blind tastingPrivate Wine Education
Customized wine education offered in person or online. Sessions can focus on specific regions, grape varieties, comparative tastings or developing a more sophisticated understanding of wine.
Private Cellar Advisory
Independent guidance for building and managing a personal wine collection. Recommendations are based on your palate, drinking preferences, budget and objectives—not on selling you wine.
Cellar advisory in detailIndependent advice
Chilcote Wine Advisory does not represent wineries or retailers, and does not earn commissions on wines recommended to clients.
Private blind tastings
The Art of Blind Tasting
Tasting blind is not a parlor game. It is the most direct way to learn what is actually in the glass.
These are structured, guided sessions built around learning rather than entertainment. Working without labels removes expectation and reputation from the equation, and what remains is the wine itself. Participants are walked through a systematic method for evaluating any glass in front of them, and leave able to taste more deliberately on their own.
Participants learn to evaluate
- Appearance
- Nose
- Palate
- Structure
- Quality
- Origin
- Variety
- Age
Experiences offered
- Introduction to Blind Tasting
- Classic Grape Varieties
- Old World vs. New World
- France Through the Glass
- Bordeaux vs. Napa Cabernet
- Advanced Blind Tasting
Private cellar advisory
A cellar should reflect the person who owns it
Chilcote Wine Advisory provides independent guidance to collectors who want to build a thoughtful cellar around what they enjoy drinking.
Whether you are starting a collection, making sense of one you inherited, or refining a cellar that has grown without a plan, the work begins with your palate and your objectives rather than with a scoring magazine. Recommendations are made on the merits of the wine and its fit for your collection, and on nothing else.
Services include
- Initial cellar assessment
- Personal palate and collecting profile
- Producer and vintage recommendations
- Buying strategy
- Cellar diversification
- Drinking-window recommendations
- Identifying gaps or over-concentration
- Cellar organization
- Inventory review
- Special-occasion and entertaining selections
- Ongoing collection consultation
For collectors and adjusters
Appraisals & insurance
Collection valuation
Written valuation of a private cellar for scheduling on a homeowner's policy, for estate purposes, or ahead of a sale.
Claim inspection
Assessment of heat, flood, power-loss, or transit damage, with a documented condition report for the carrier or adjuster.
Expert opinion
Written opinion on provenance, condition, and replacement cost where a claim or a dispute turns on the state of the wine.
About
Randy Chilcote
WSET Level 4 Diploma
Wine becomes much more interesting when you understand why it tastes the way it does.
My approach to wine combines structured education and analytical tasting with the simple objective of helping people enjoy wine more.
Whether teaching someone how to evaluate a wine blind, exploring the differences between classic wine regions, or helping a client develop a personal cellar, my goal is the same:
Provide knowledgeable, independent guidance without making wine intimidating.
Chilcote Wine Advisory was created to provide private clients with personalized wine education and cellar guidance based on their individual interests and tastes.
Contact
Request a Private Consultation
Whether you are interested in developing your tasting ability, arranging a private blind tasting, or building a thoughtful wine collection, I would be pleased to discuss what you are looking for.
- randy@chilcotewine.com
- Telephone
- (616) 446-3204
- Serving
- Michigan · Online nationwide