about tango

Tango Wine Club

was created in order to offer a comfortable space for learning more about wine, exploring outstanding wine-growing regions, understanding the elements of formal wine tasting in order to better learn to analyze the wines you taste on your own, and to connect participants with other wine enthusiasts (or with their friends!) in post-workshop breakout rooms. 

The idea was born out of Laura’s enthusiasm for wine

For teaching, and from her own positive experiences with engaging with students through remote teaching (even pre-pandemic, when she taught her first “French for Travelers” course over Zoom in 2019!). 

In her teaching of languages

She found that this modality allows adult learners unprecedented convenience: many of us know the feeling of signing up for something that takes place in person, and then not really feeling like actually going there after a long day of work when you sometimes just want to go home and put on your “soft pants” (a colleague coined this term during the pandemic and it is now a favorite!). 

The idea for someday offering wine instruction over Zoom first took shape during the pandemic. 

Laura was taking her first formal wine course virtually through one of the many schools offering the WSET curriculum. She found the classes rather expensive in spite of being largely self-directed, and the instruction, taking place only during a few live tastings, to be fairly dry (this was also the case with the second school she chose for Level II, two years later).  As a teacher, she thought, “There has to be a better way.” 

Simultaneous to this period, the world was enduring a pandemic.

Lives were thrown into varying forms of chaos, but Laura observed that something unexpectedly wonderful began to happen, both in her own life and more generally: people began creating book clubs over Zoom, joining virtual cooking classes, and having other shared experiences over Zoom, discovering fun new rituals and ways to reconnect. These little gatherings became a way for people to slow down and savor connection again. Whether across town or across the country, friends near and far, previously scattered by busy schedules, found themselves laughing, learning, and making time for one another. What began as a creative solution quickly turned into something more: a joyful ritual, a way to stay close, and an excuse to keep in touch. 

As life slowly returned to normal

these virtual get-togethers became more than just a workaround—they turned into something people genuinely look forward to: joyful moments of connection, woven into our busy in-person lives. It was in this spirit that Laura developed her idea for virtual wine workshops.

For native speakers of English

The first association with the word “tango” is usually to the beautiful Argentine dance form.

Tango comes directly from the Latin, and it’s foremost meaning, however (as seen above) is to touch.

(This is apt for a style of dancing in which partners are so close that they move as one form, no?) The -o is the 1st person subject ending in the present tense, and therefore translates specifically to “I touch.”  

It is in this spirit of touch that the name Tango Wine Club was born.

I was preparing lessons for my Latin II class in a spring semester at Centre College, and the verb tango stood out as I prepared that day’s vocabulary list.  To touch…this idea seemed fitting for a wine club focused not on wine sales, but inspired by the sensorial experience of wine tasting. All five senses are engaged when tasting wine. All five! (I think I can make a good case even for hearing.) 

We think of touch primarily as being with our fingers and hands

(and yes indeed, you are holding a glass, when you are tasting wine) but with wine analysis, we engage our sense of touch also when we describe the body of wine, which is the weight of it in the mouth. So you are feeling with your mouth. Fun, right? (In addition to being fun, did you know that neuroscience is showing us that engaging your sense of touch is grounding, and can help with calming anxiety and overwhelm? A psychiatrist explains, in this short video, or you can view her more in-depth version here starting around minute 4:30).

Even the secondary and subsequent meanings of the verb tango in Latin seemed apt for wine tasting, further convincing me that this was the word, the perfect word.

To take, take away, carry off…just the act of tasting a wine carries us away from the chatter of our minds and instead into the present moment: the act of being here, of physically holding a glass, tuning into the assessment of the scent and taste of its content, analyzing its color and clarity. And that is what you reach, arrive at, come to: what is right in front of you, the “living now,” experiencing the wine in your glass. Later, when you extend what you learn in the workshops to your gatherings with friends, you’ll hopefully be more engaged and present in those moments, too. (On a more pragmatic level, after analyzing a wine, the consumer also certainly comes to a conclusion about the quality and characteristics of the wine – developing this skill is another aim of the wine club.)

And finally, to taste, to eat, to drink; it’s safe to assume that those definitions of tango will not require explanation of their perfect fit for the name of a wine club!

nota bene and disclaimer: For my readers in the literary world, it is with consciousness and intentional humor that I have committed here the taboo of “starting out with a definition.” The Latin meanings were so analogous to what I have created with Tango Wine Club that in this case it seemed perfectly appropriate.