The Wine Etiquette Guide - Your Defense Against Wine Snobbery

Chuck Blethen is a Distinguished Toastmaster in North Carolina and has served for the past two years as their District 37 Public Relations Officer, responsible for the communication with the 4000+ Toastmasters in the state of NC. He managed the District 37 website, the Tarheel Talker newsletter, and all of the pubic relations for District staff.

Chuck has visited hundreds of wineries on seven continents over the last 40 years, and has traveled many times to Australia to work with the vineyard owners and winemakers in Hunter Valley just north of Sydney. He has presented many "edu-tainment" seminars about wine tasting where participants learn how to objectively evaluate wines using wine tasting charts and flavor guides. He has been an instructor for several major hospitality businesses including Sheraton Hotels, Celebrity Cruise Lines, Princess Cruise Lines, and Royal Caribbean. His knowledge of grape growing, winemaking and his personal skills in wine etiquette make him an ideal speaker about wine related topics. His book The Wine Etiquette Guide was first released by Trafford Publishing in July 2006.

Chuck's speaking experience during the last 24 months includes over 75 presentations to a wide variety of audiences including corporations, homeowner associations, civic organizations, cruise ship passengers and the general public. Additionally, Chuck has been a guest speaker/lecturer at various colleges and universities over the years as well as having published over 30 articles in various national and international magazines. He teaches wine-related courses at AB Tech Community College in Candler NC. He has organized and promoted several sustainable grape-growing conferences in WNC. Chuck is founder of the Sustainable Appalachian Viticulture Institute, an organization used to provide educational venues for people interested in learning how to grow and market cold-hardy grapes in WNC.

He has traveled to 65 countries logging over five million air miles and speaks Spanish, German and French. In October of 2010 he traveled to northern Italy to study high-altitude, steep slope viticulture. He and his wife own a small teaching vineyard in Marshall NC where they grow their native cold-hardy Muscadine grapes bio-dynamically. They also own a greenhouse for propagating native cold-hardy muscadine grapevines for sale.

Chuck is a graduate of Virginia Tech with a BS degree in Geophysics.