Austin locals are trading traditional nights out for this hilarious 70-minute interactive tasting led by a stand-up comedian pouring five distinct wines

Austin knows how to turn a casual hang into a whole night out. This time, swap the South Congress bar crawl for five wines and a stand-up comedian explaining every sip. An Idiot’s Guide to Wine Austin is a roughly 70-minute comedy wine tasting made for sharing with your crew. The jokes do the heavy lifting; the wine know-how tags along.

What is An Idiot’s Guide to Wine?

An Idiot’s Guide to Wine is a live comedy wine-tasting show in which a stand-up comedian guides you through five different wines in about 70 minutes. Jokes, storytelling and genuine wine facts share the stage, and no prior knowledge is needed. Behind the concept is Australian comedian Merrick Watts, a wine competition judge and Barossa Master with Level 3 credentials from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET). Those credentials give the jokes real wine knowledge to rest on, though he isn’t the one performing: the host is a stand-up comedian.

Wine tasting for beginners: what to know

Wine has a way of making confident adults go quiet. Yet in a 2001 study by Frédéric Brochet, wine students described a white wine dyed red using red-wine descriptors, and in 2008 Robert Hodgson found that competition judges often scored the same wine differently when it was served to them more than once. So if you’ve ever nodded along to a tasting note you couldn’t taste, you’re in good company. Even tannins, the drying feeling beginners often notice first, come from grape skins, seeds, stems and oak.

Expect a relaxed, interactive, informal atmosphere, more comedy night than formal tasting, where laughing, asking questions and admitting you have no idea are all welcome. It’s adults only, with the minimum age set by the legal drinking age and the venue’s policy.

An Idiot’s Guide to Wine reviews in Austin

Ernest Hemingway called wine “one of the most civilized things in the world” in Death in the Afternoon (1932), and a full-bodied night out with friends is a fair way to test the theory. An Idiot’s Guide to Wine is at Brushy Street Commons in Austin on selected dates over the coming months, and tickets on sale now.