Because intoxication can affect the consumer's judgment, wine tasters generally spit the wine out after they have assessed its quality at formal tastings, where dozens of wines may be assessed.

The formal tasting took place at the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements, a centerpiece of gilded fountains, giant airships and other monuments of the Soviet era.

Hors d'oeuvres will be served before the formal sit-down tasting of the Champagnes; afterward, there will be a reception with caviar.

Johann Rupert pulled out two very old wines - a 1982 Rustenberg cabernet sauvignon and a 1974 Meerendal pinotage - which we drank after the formal tasting.

For the formal tasting the next evening, the venue was the main office of Coutts & Company, a venerable London bank.

Note that the Taphuis wine-tasting area (where tastings cost R15, or R25 for a formal tasting with a guide) is at the opposite end of the estate from the Groot Drakenstein manor house and restaurants.

"These are people who find formal tastings in Manhattan sterile and stuffy," said Arnie Eisen, the group's founder and moving spirit.

"Whether it's an informal wine tasting with friends, a formal, educational tasting for serious aficionados, or just a family gathering with a box of Chablis."

He organizes formal twice-a-month tastings and seminars on everything from ports and pinot noirs to sales techniques.

All the dinners, which do not involve formal tastings, will be held at Babbo, with reservations starting at 5:30 p.m.: (212) 777-0303.