A wine tasting with a difference. Discover finished wines before they enter the usual marketplace — and explore what happens when wine, story and identity collide.
WHAT IS A SHINER?
In the wine industry, a shiner is a bottle of wine that has been fermented, aged, and bottled—but leaves the factory without a label. Because the bare glass bottle reflects light, it appears shiny.
Wine is only the beginning of the story.
The wine before the label. A different kind of wine tasting.
What happens when you taste the wine before the label tells you what to think?
The Shiner is an intimate tasting experience built around finished wines that sit outside the usual spotlight — second labels, alternative cuvées, surplus parcels, experimental wines and other releases that rarely receive the attention given to an estate’s headline bottle.
There is no grand cru hierarchy to follow.
No famous label to impress you.
No tasting sheet telling you what you are supposed to think.
Instead, we taste the wine.
Then we uncover where it came from, why it exists and what it might become..
Each tasting brings together a small selection of wines chosen for their character, provenance or commercial curiosity.
You might encounter a Cabernet from Napa, a forgotten parcel of Zinfandel, an unusual Muscat, a younger-vine wine from a celebrated estate or a second label that deserves rather more attention than it receives..
The wines are tasted first.
Their stories come afterwards..
And somewhere between the glass and the story, the evening becomes a conversation about wine, branding, identity and value..
How the event unfolds.
01 TASTE
Six to eight wines are presented without the usual weight of labels and reputations.
What do you actually taste?
What do you think it is worth?
Would you order another glass?
02 REVEAL
We reveal the wine’s origin, vintage, production story and why it exists outside the producer’s principal range.
The anonymous bottle acquires a history.
03 DISCOVER
We explore what distinguishes the wine:
Vineyard.
Vintage.
Variety.
Winemaking.
Production.
Positioning.
And, sometimes, the peculiar circumstances that caused the wine to become a shiner in the first place.
04 IMAGINE
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH IT?
Could it become a restaurant wine?
A hotel house wine?
A private release?
A new label?
A limited edition?
Or is it simply a very good bottle that has been waiting for somebody to notice?.
THE SHINER IS PART WINE TASTING
PART BRAND EXPERIMENT
About
You are not simply comparing wines. You are discovering what happens when a wine is separated from the assumptions created by its label. Why does one bottle command attention while another remains invisible? How much of a wine’s perceived value comes from the liquid itself? How much comes from the estate, the label, the packaging, the story, the scarcity or the reputation? And what happens when you start again?
There are no exams. No scores. No right answers. You don’t need to know Bordeaux from Burgundy. You simply need to be curious.
This is not a wine class.
Tast first, ask questions later.
Who is the wine tasting event for?
001
Wine Enthusiasts.
For people who enjoy discovering wines beyond the obvious names.
2026
002
Collectors.
For those interested in what sits alongside — and sometimes beneath — prestigious estates.
2025
003
Hospitality.
For restaurants, hotels, clubs and wine-led businesses looking for distinctive wines and new ideas.
2025
004
Entrepreneurs.
Identity, packaging
2024
005
Private Groups.
A deliberately different format for private dinners, clubs and corporate gatherings.
2024
THE SHINER. theWINE BEFORE THE LABEL.
Private tastings · Wine dinners · Corporate experiences