Blind wine tasting event coming to Sayville

When it comes to our five senses, sight can be a big fake out: When you see something before you taste it, you usually make an array of assumptions about its texture and flavor. 

Tasting with your eyes closed is a superb way to reset those connections. On Thursday in Sayville, sommelier Jessica Green and writer Rachel Bosworth will guide people through that sensory adventure during a pop-up blind wine tasting at The Winston, an event space in town. 

Starting at 6:30 p.m., Green, who also owns Sayville’s Down The Rabbit Hole Wine Boutique, and Bosworth — who also owns a communications firm — will cloak three bottles of wine, hand out splashes of each, and guide people through a process of deduction to figure out what’s what. 

It’s the inaugural event for Sediment & Sentiment, a wine education collaboration between Green and Bosworth, who have been friends ever since attending Mattituck High School together 20 years ago, and whose professional lives have intersected, too.

 Bosworth said the tasting is about exploring different kinds of wines without judgment.  "Blind tasting is a unique way to discover a wine and learn more about it.”

Before Green became a certified sommelier and wine entrepreneur, she worked in myriad corners of the wine world, from tasting rooms and harvest to corporate beverage programs and wine buying. Bosworth said Green will draw on that experience to help those at the tasting identify what they’re sipping, as well as feel more confident asking for certain wines in the future. “The only things the wines will have in common is that they will be biodynamic and organic,” Bosworth said.

That night, the front of The Winston will be turned into a pop-up wine bar for the evening — with tables, chairs, and glasses available for purchase from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. — for those who aren’t part of the tasting but want to drop in.

Tickets for the tasting, which starts at 6:30 p.m., are $55 (purchased at sedimentandsentiment.com) and include three pours of wine and, after the big reveal, a glass of whatever strikes your fancy. Plates of cheese from Sayville Cheese are $15 extra, and blind wine tasting kits will be for sale, as well.

The doors open at 6 p.m. Thursday at The Winston at 249 W. Main St. in Sayville.