'Wine and Cheese Tasting' makes classy comeback

Following a semester’s absence, Penn’s most popular preceptorial, “Wine and Cheese Tasting,” is back on the menu and moving downtown.

This year’s “Wine and Cheese Tasting” preceptorial — which was previously held on campus — will be hosted in the cellar of Pinot Boutique, an Old City boutique that specializes in local wine, wine tasting and wine accessories.

The preceptorial will be modeled after Pinot’s introductory wine-tasting class and will be led by wine specialists at the boutique, according to Wharton and College junior Priyanka Anand, one of four coordinators of the preceptorial.

The preceptorial committee has increased the number of places. One hundred and eighty spots have been reserved for seniors across 10 sessions, which will run between mid-March and early April.

According to Engineering senior Nancy Wang, who also coordinates the preceptorial, these adjustments are largely due to financial and organizational changes.

Last semester, the preceptorial committee withheld the wine-tasting class because the changing leadership wanted to “revamp the workshop by bringing it to a real winery.” The hiatus allowed the committee to combine both semesters’ budgets to allow more students to participate in a “more authentic environment”.

While the committee expects the wine-tasting preceptorial to be the student favorite this semester, they expect other experiential-based preceptorials to be popular as well.

“A big part of their popularity is that it’s something that normally needs to be paid for but now Penn is paying for it,” Anand said.

She added that preceptorials also offer students the opportunity to “get [their] feet wet into something that [they] aren’t particularly knowledgeable about.”

“A lot of people get caught up in the Penn bubble. Preceptorials are a good way of drawing you out,” she noted.

Preceptorial registration ends on Sunday, Jan. 31.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.