Last week we had our American Wine Society - Year 1 - Wine judge Certification class and exam.
The exam is only held at the National Conference and this year it was in Rochester New York. I flew back to attend the conference and to take the exam.
The exam is in 3 parts. One part is theory and we had a series of books and papersthat were required reading in preparation for the exam. Most of the topics were basic sensory analysis with some additional emphasis on Wine faults.
I wouldn't guarantee it, but I think one could be successful just reading Alan Young's book "Making Sense of Wine" and also Marian Baldy's "University Wine Course". these books also give you wine tasting exercises to perform such as judging between 3 wines of various sweetness. They give you the formulae and ingredients to create valid tasting samples.
The 2nd part is, for most students, the hardest, and that is: you are given 10 wines. In our case 6 had aroma faults and 4 flavor faults. There were about 25 possibilities of what could be the cause of the fault. We had to assign the correct fault to each of the glasses. I had tested and tasted and practiced this part of the exam several times over the summer and fall, and we also reviewed it again on test day, but when you have to pull out the correct aroma from a full red wine during test conditions, it gets a lot trickier.
This is something I will have to practice and practice again and again.
The final part of the exam is to judge 4 wines and write up your tasting notes and assign a score to the wine.
The wines were 1) A strawberry fruit wine, 2) A white hybrid 3) A chambourcin (native american red grape) 4) a red vinifera.
I had never had a Chambourcin before and I though it somewhat harsh and vegetal. I thought they must have adulterated it, and I described what I tasted and because I knew they wanted us to avoid scoring everything mid-range ( i.e. 14-16 points : a 'good' wine), I gave this a 12.5 out of 20. A commercially acceptable but nothing special wine. The judges who had tasted Chambourcin before, thought this a very good example of one and graded it 17 out of 20 points, though I did note that at least one also thought it vegetal.
The rest of the wines I came close on, and overall I was good enough to get a pass.
What a relief ! I wasn't sure of the results. I don't think any of us were and I wouldn't have been surprised if I hadn't passed and still had 2 more days of a conference to get through. I was beginning to think that maybe they should tell us the results at the end of the conference so at least we could all have a good time before we got the news.
After getting through the first year, I now have a much better idea of what to expect and I can plan and practice for it. Several of my class mates had fellow AWS members who had been through the class before and were able to give them some good advice. My recommendation is that if you do intend to attempt the program, that you search out anybody who has taken it before and talk to them about what to expect.
Having found out Friday morning that I had passed the exam, the next two days of the Conference were a real gas. I will write on it later.
john
Sunday, November 20, 2011
WSET Unit 6 - 2nd attempt
I had my WSET Unit 6 exam on Nov 3rd. I think I passed, but it could still be close.
I was fortunate in that this time, my hands, while tired and cramping before I finished writing nevertheless didn't start shaking as they did the first time. Of course I think the caffeine had something to play during that affair.
I have learned a couple of things.
. If, like me, you spend a lot of time on the computer, don't hand-write letters or papers that much, then you need to practice your hand-writing. Hand write out all the topics you might encounter. Build up your hand writing skills.
. I usually write in pen. Last time I took this test, I also used a pen and when I made mistakes or wanted to add in a few words, it got very sloppy. I had a lot of cross outs. But I hate pencils, with their hexagram sides and points that are made to grip the pencil but just dig into my finger. I also hate how the point wears down and affects my writing style. 2 months ago I went to the store and bought 6 types of mechanical pencil. I tried all of them and found the one that felt best in my hand. Even better, is that it erases easily, and the point is always sharp and fresh. I will only use these from now on.
. Read the small print at the top of your tasting page: It could say "These wines are all from the same region or country". This saved me when I thought I smelled acetaldehyde and was thinking Sherry when the wine was really an aged Sercial. I knew my 2nd wines was a Madeira and therefore went back to re-look at the first wine and re-evaluated it correctly. The examiners review notes mention time and again that people lose points because they fail to read / apply this hint.
. Be aware of sub-topics within a larger one. I have seen this twice now. On this exam there was a question about VOS, and VORS Sherry. There is no specific topic in the Oxford Companion about this. It is buried deep down in the topic on Sherry itself. If you just look at the larger topic, (Sherry) you can miss some detail that is actually large enough to be a topic on its own.
. Don't forget your Who, What, When, Where, Why, and Hows. One question on my test was "Write a paragraph on Languedoc". While keeping to the context of Fortified Wines, you still have to put down as much as you can about the topic. So first tell what and where it is. Talk about the climate. Talk about the terrain.
I mentioned 3 of the 4 VDN DOCs that I could remember. I mentioned that Arnaldus de Villenova (not part of the syllabus, but interesting nevertheless) invented the mutage process at the University of Montpelier in Languedoc. Your job is to tie together as many facts as you can as long as you stay on topic.
. Regarding tasting. I used to follow the WSET - SAT in order of items on the taste part. i.e. I would check sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, intensity, flavors, length. I found myself having to take several sips to pull together my thoughts on each of these items. This took a lot of time. After I took a review tasting session with (MW Candidate) Maureen Downey, she pointed out that I really needed to speed this up. AND she said that I should figure out an order that worked for me. Now I just do two sips. Sweetness, body, (slurp) alcohol. (Spit) Acidity and Tannin develop slower and I judge these after spitting. (Next sip.) Intensity, flavors, and length. Also some flavors might develop during the first sip, But the mouth is now prepared to taste.
. Your mouth does wake up. Maureen mentioned that some of the MW students wash their mouths with Champagne before entering the testing room. It wakes the mouth up and saves a couple of minutes during the tasting session.
. Smell all your wines before tasting any of them. One may be very high alcohol, for example, that you really should taste last. Do your tasting in an order that works for you. The wines are not necessarily set out in a good tasting order. Just don't mix up your notes.
. My current goal is to write a complete tasting note in7-8 minutes or less. On a normal WSET exam that will leave 35-40 minutes to write the 3 topic questions that they will give us. By a complete note, I mean one with all the options. Normally 20 points are given for the basic notes and 5 points for the optional areas of : Variety, Quality, Price, Region, Country. You never know what combination of these last sections they will give you to make up the 5 points. So always practice by writing them all.
If anybody reads this blog and wants my notes, I have 36 pages of notes that I took from the Oxford Companion and various other sources and compiled them all in one place to make studying them easier.
Send me an e-mail and I will send you my notes.
john
I was fortunate in that this time, my hands, while tired and cramping before I finished writing nevertheless didn't start shaking as they did the first time. Of course I think the caffeine had something to play during that affair.
I have learned a couple of things.
. If, like me, you spend a lot of time on the computer, don't hand-write letters or papers that much, then you need to practice your hand-writing. Hand write out all the topics you might encounter. Build up your hand writing skills.
. I usually write in pen. Last time I took this test, I also used a pen and when I made mistakes or wanted to add in a few words, it got very sloppy. I had a lot of cross outs. But I hate pencils, with their hexagram sides and points that are made to grip the pencil but just dig into my finger. I also hate how the point wears down and affects my writing style. 2 months ago I went to the store and bought 6 types of mechanical pencil. I tried all of them and found the one that felt best in my hand. Even better, is that it erases easily, and the point is always sharp and fresh. I will only use these from now on.
. Read the small print at the top of your tasting page: It could say "These wines are all from the same region or country". This saved me when I thought I smelled acetaldehyde and was thinking Sherry when the wine was really an aged Sercial. I knew my 2nd wines was a Madeira and therefore went back to re-look at the first wine and re-evaluated it correctly. The examiners review notes mention time and again that people lose points because they fail to read / apply this hint.
. Be aware of sub-topics within a larger one. I have seen this twice now. On this exam there was a question about VOS, and VORS Sherry. There is no specific topic in the Oxford Companion about this. It is buried deep down in the topic on Sherry itself. If you just look at the larger topic, (Sherry) you can miss some detail that is actually large enough to be a topic on its own.
. Don't forget your Who, What, When, Where, Why, and Hows. One question on my test was "Write a paragraph on Languedoc". While keeping to the context of Fortified Wines, you still have to put down as much as you can about the topic. So first tell what and where it is. Talk about the climate. Talk about the terrain.
I mentioned 3 of the 4 VDN DOCs that I could remember. I mentioned that Arnaldus de Villenova (not part of the syllabus, but interesting nevertheless) invented the mutage process at the University of Montpelier in Languedoc. Your job is to tie together as many facts as you can as long as you stay on topic.
. Regarding tasting. I used to follow the WSET - SAT in order of items on the taste part. i.e. I would check sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, intensity, flavors, length. I found myself having to take several sips to pull together my thoughts on each of these items. This took a lot of time. After I took a review tasting session with (MW Candidate) Maureen Downey, she pointed out that I really needed to speed this up. AND she said that I should figure out an order that worked for me. Now I just do two sips. Sweetness, body, (slurp) alcohol. (Spit) Acidity and Tannin develop slower and I judge these after spitting. (Next sip.) Intensity, flavors, and length. Also some flavors might develop during the first sip, But the mouth is now prepared to taste.
. Your mouth does wake up. Maureen mentioned that some of the MW students wash their mouths with Champagne before entering the testing room. It wakes the mouth up and saves a couple of minutes during the tasting session.
. Smell all your wines before tasting any of them. One may be very high alcohol, for example, that you really should taste last. Do your tasting in an order that works for you. The wines are not necessarily set out in a good tasting order. Just don't mix up your notes.
. My current goal is to write a complete tasting note in7-8 minutes or less. On a normal WSET exam that will leave 35-40 minutes to write the 3 topic questions that they will give us. By a complete note, I mean one with all the options. Normally 20 points are given for the basic notes and 5 points for the optional areas of : Variety, Quality, Price, Region, Country. You never know what combination of these last sections they will give you to make up the 5 points. So always practice by writing them all.
If anybody reads this blog and wants my notes, I have 36 pages of notes that I took from the Oxford Companion and various other sources and compiled them all in one place to make studying them easier.
Send me an e-mail and I will send you my notes.
john
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Simply Italian US Tour 2011
I feel like I am becoming "somebody".
Through the fortunes of having friends in the business, living near a key winemaking area, and close to a cosmopolitan and internationally famous city (San Francisco) and probably specifically by volunteering at every wine event that I can, my name is starting to get "out there" and I am actually starting to get invitations to attend events instead of having to volunteer at them to get in the door.
This time I got an invitation through the Society of Wine Educators (SWE) (http://www.societyofwineeducators.org)
an organization in which I am a member and through which I got my Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) certification and where I intend to attempt the Certified Wine Educator next August 2012. However, I also have to thank Balzac Communications who organized the event and Paul Wagner, its president who is a board member of SWE and probably opened up the tasting to their members.
There are 20 wine regions in Italy, many more DOC and DOCG appellations, and hundreds if not thousands of grapes that have been growing there for thousands of years. Learning Italian wines is intimidating and a scary but extraordinarily rewarding experience. There are so many grapes, regions, and styles that you can always find something that you will like. And then you will be surprised by yet another wine after that.
The Simply Italian Tour had about 15 regions and 60 producers represented. It was busy but not overly crowded which is a real pleasure at a wine tasting. The room was divided a couple of different ways. On one wall were the sparkling wines, Franciacorta and Prosessco. One one wall, the Friuli producers were pouring.
In the center of the room were the Premium Brands from the Institute of Fine Italian Wines. Another wall focused on wines from the Veneto. Finally scattered throughout were single wineries representing many of the other regions.
Unlike some other events, there was not a huge crowd just around the premium brands. These attendees were spread throughout the room and were seriously interested in considering all the wines presented. My kind of crowd.
It is always hard to take notes in a walk around tasting like this. Pen in one hand, tasting notes in the other and glass in your third hand, so I don't have a lot of great notes, (I do have to find a system) but here is what I pulled from the notes that I did take.
First of all my primary goal is to taste grapes that I know nothing about. (And of course, an Italian Wine Tasting is a remarkable place to do this.) I am likely to pass up the world's most popular and most expensive Super-Tuscan to learn about Sagratino, the native grape of Umbria. I am probably not going to be found in front of a table of Barolos (The wine of kings and the king of wines) looking for the best one, but will be off in the corner trying a Lagrein so that I can learn that grape and trying to lock it in my memory.
So, having said that, here are some wines I liked:
There are so many examples of both classic, rare, and innovative wine-making that you will always find something interesting.
john
Through the fortunes of having friends in the business, living near a key winemaking area, and close to a cosmopolitan and internationally famous city (San Francisco) and probably specifically by volunteering at every wine event that I can, my name is starting to get "out there" and I am actually starting to get invitations to attend events instead of having to volunteer at them to get in the door.
This time I got an invitation through the Society of Wine Educators (SWE) (http://www.societyofwineeducators.org)
an organization in which I am a member and through which I got my Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) certification and where I intend to attempt the Certified Wine Educator next August 2012. However, I also have to thank Balzac Communications who organized the event and Paul Wagner, its president who is a board member of SWE and probably opened up the tasting to their members.
There are 20 wine regions in Italy, many more DOC and DOCG appellations, and hundreds if not thousands of grapes that have been growing there for thousands of years. Learning Italian wines is intimidating and a scary but extraordinarily rewarding experience. There are so many grapes, regions, and styles that you can always find something that you will like. And then you will be surprised by yet another wine after that.
The Simply Italian Tour had about 15 regions and 60 producers represented. It was busy but not overly crowded which is a real pleasure at a wine tasting. The room was divided a couple of different ways. On one wall were the sparkling wines, Franciacorta and Prosessco. One one wall, the Friuli producers were pouring.
In the center of the room were the Premium Brands from the Institute of Fine Italian Wines. Another wall focused on wines from the Veneto. Finally scattered throughout were single wineries representing many of the other regions.
Unlike some other events, there was not a huge crowd just around the premium brands. These attendees were spread throughout the room and were seriously interested in considering all the wines presented. My kind of crowd.
It is always hard to take notes in a walk around tasting like this. Pen in one hand, tasting notes in the other and glass in your third hand, so I don't have a lot of great notes, (I do have to find a system) but here is what I pulled from the notes that I did take.
First of all my primary goal is to taste grapes that I know nothing about. (And of course, an Italian Wine Tasting is a remarkable place to do this.) I am likely to pass up the world's most popular and most expensive Super-Tuscan to learn about Sagratino, the native grape of Umbria. I am probably not going to be found in front of a table of Barolos (The wine of kings and the king of wines) looking for the best one, but will be off in the corner trying a Lagrein so that I can learn that grape and trying to lock it in my memory.
So, having said that, here are some wines I liked:
- I tried several of the Franciacortas. To me, these sparkling wines don't have the same acidity as those of Champagne. A couple were off dry and the vintage ones didn't have as much of a over-ripe apple to them as you sometimes get in France. They seemed slightly fresher. Of note was the Rose Millesimato (2007) from Le Marchesine. This winery also won Gambero Rosso's "Sparkling Wine of the Year" for one of their other sparkling wines.
- Masi Agricola : 2008 Campofiorin (flower fields) : Rosso del Veronese. Very smooth blend 70% Corvino. Just an overall nice wine.
- Pio Cesare: 2006 Barolo Ornato. This wine had a lot of barrel spice. Clove was up front followed by cinnamon. This wine was still strongly tannic but the aromas were complex and inviting. Probably awesome in another couple years.
- Fraccaroli "Deinque" ND ( non vintage) Sparkling Malvasia. This was a full body rich spumannte style sparkler. I have not had many Malvasias before (except as Madeira Malmsey) and this one was a real treat.
- Benedetti 2005 "Croce del Gal" Amarone della Valpolicella. Very rich, very full. Intense cherry aromas, Some tannin. Maybe my favorite of the day for red wines.
- Beato Bartolomeo de Breganze: 2010 Prosecco extra dry. Very fruity, very ripe, but not overripe apples. Minimal mouse (is that prosecco style?). I marked several stars next to this one.
There are so many examples of both classic, rare, and innovative wine-making that you will always find something interesting.
john
Friday, November 18, 2011
Collio Wine Tasting
On October 26th I was privileged to pour wines for one of the wine producers of Collio Italy. The event was organized by my good friends at Balzac Communications and held in the showroom of the San Francisco Vespa dealer.
This was a small and intimate event but one that had a number of really nice wines and a couple of real surprises.
First of all: for those that are unfamiliar wit it, Collio is a DOC wine region in North east Italy - right next to the border of Slovania. I am told that the designated region actually extends across the border. Colli are hills and this region got its name for its rolling terrain. They are specially noted for their floral white wines. According to J. Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, Collio, in the 1970s, was the region that convinced Italians that they actually could make good white wines.
Pinot grigio, Pinot blanc, Friulano (aka Tokai, aka Sauvigonasse), Sauvignon (blanc and gris), and Ribolla Gialla are the key grapes. The first thing that I noticed was that one of my bottles was marked just "Sauvignon". Never sure when dealing with Italian grapes, I checked with the sponsors to make sure this was the same Sauvignon blanc that we all have come to know and love. Just this last week (mid November) I learned that European wine laws allowed the vintners to use the names of 7 varieties on their labels instead of just the area. "Sauvignon" is the generic for blends of Sauvignon bland and Sauvignon gris, though the wine could be 100% of either.
The key wine of Collio is (in my mind at least) Friulano. This is a light, dry, floral white wine, somewhat high in acidity, but one that makes a clean refreshing wine. Pinot grigio and Sauvignon now have more acreage than Friulano but this is the grape that made Collio famous.
As I was pouring and during a break in the traffic, one of my colleagues Connie called me over to taste one of her wines. "If you close your eyes and taste this, you will swear it is a red wine" was her challenge. I did close my eyes, I did taste, and I did swear. Ribolla gialla was the grape. The winemaker had fermented it on its skins, it had tannins, it had body, and if I had not not known better I would thought it was red. But it wasn't. Normally it is made light and delicate, but this winemaker gave it real character. And it worked.
Ribolla has a story. It was introduced into the Collio / Friuli region during the 13th century. It became so popular that the Italian poet Boccaccio specifically called out Ribolla as one of the main traits and causes of the deadly sin of Gluttony.
I didn't taste a bad wine that night. And I became a fan of Collio wines.
john
This was a small and intimate event but one that had a number of really nice wines and a couple of real surprises.
First of all: for those that are unfamiliar wit it, Collio is a DOC wine region in North east Italy - right next to the border of Slovania. I am told that the designated region actually extends across the border. Colli are hills and this region got its name for its rolling terrain. They are specially noted for their floral white wines. According to J. Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, Collio, in the 1970s, was the region that convinced Italians that they actually could make good white wines.
Pinot grigio, Pinot blanc, Friulano (aka Tokai, aka Sauvigonasse), Sauvignon (blanc and gris), and Ribolla Gialla are the key grapes. The first thing that I noticed was that one of my bottles was marked just "Sauvignon". Never sure when dealing with Italian grapes, I checked with the sponsors to make sure this was the same Sauvignon blanc that we all have come to know and love. Just this last week (mid November) I learned that European wine laws allowed the vintners to use the names of 7 varieties on their labels instead of just the area. "Sauvignon" is the generic for blends of Sauvignon bland and Sauvignon gris, though the wine could be 100% of either.
The key wine of Collio is (in my mind at least) Friulano. This is a light, dry, floral white wine, somewhat high in acidity, but one that makes a clean refreshing wine. Pinot grigio and Sauvignon now have more acreage than Friulano but this is the grape that made Collio famous.
As I was pouring and during a break in the traffic, one of my colleagues Connie called me over to taste one of her wines. "If you close your eyes and taste this, you will swear it is a red wine" was her challenge. I did close my eyes, I did taste, and I did swear. Ribolla gialla was the grape. The winemaker had fermented it on its skins, it had tannins, it had body, and if I had not not known better I would thought it was red. But it wasn't. Normally it is made light and delicate, but this winemaker gave it real character. And it worked.
Ribolla has a story. It was introduced into the Collio / Friuli region during the 13th century. It became so popular that the Italian poet Boccaccio specifically called out Ribolla as one of the main traits and causes of the deadly sin of Gluttony.
I didn't taste a bad wine that night. And I became a fan of Collio wines.
john
Friday, October 21, 2011
The Week Ahead.
I am fortunate in many ways. I live 30 minutes from Napa Valley to the North and I live about 40 minutes from San Francisco to the West. (East is Gold Country, Lake Tahoe and Yosemite Valley - but they are 3 hours away. South is nothing). We get occasional earthquakes - had two yesterday just on the other side of the hills in Oakland - but on the whole this is wonderful place to live.
An added benefit is that with a Napa and San Francisco nearby there is usually some sort of Wine event going on. Next week will be untypical, however illustrative of some of the opportunities.
Let me start with Last week First. Susan and I volunteered to work at the Lodi Appellation at Treasure Island event. We are on the volunteer list for several wine organizations and we trade off 2-3 hours of work against the entry fee (often $50-$60) and then spend 2-3 hours tasting wine for free.
Lodi Appellation is in the California Central Valley however it gets cool delta breezes so that it can still make some pretty nice wines. Lodi is probably best known for big, jammy Old Vine Zinfandels, although they also do a great job with a number of other grapes as well. Treasure Island was a fun venue. It sits in San Francisco Bay with the City of Oakland off the eastern shore and San Francisco off the western one. You get a great view no matter which way you look. One additional benefit was that it was San Francisco Fleet Week during which the city honors the US Navy although we also get some ships from our Canadian Friends as well. Every Year there is an awesome airshow by the Blue Angels and others, this year the Canadian Snowbirds and some aircraft, I know not what, but the sound of its engines alone and the fact that I think it broke the sound barrier a couple of times was enough to keep me astounded. At times the jets would fly low level right over the island and that is just one of the pleasures of this event.
With last week out of the way, we look at next week.
Tomorrow (Saturday) I am tasting at Jacksons a liquor store a few towns over. Always a fun event. This week it will be an Italian distributor who is leading us through a tasting of 12 Italian wines. the wines range from a Moscato and a Fiano on the white side to a Montalcino and a Nebbiolo among the reds.
Tuesday: I am pouring wines for a tasting event of the Winemakers of Collio Italy at a Vespa scooter showroom in San Francisco. Collio is located in the North East corner of Italy on the border of Slovania, this area has become noted for its excellent aromatic dry white wines. Several winemakers are flying to the US to pour their wines and represent their wineries. I will pour the wines and tell the wine story of one of the wineries that didn't make the trip. So I am studying their web site and learning about the area in general. All part of being a wine student.
Wednesday morning: I am a taster at another Italian Wine event in SF. This one is the "Simply Italian" wine tasting. It is a walk around tasting of Italian Wine producers. I was invited as a member of the Society of Wine Educators, but also (maybe, I hope) that my name is getting on various lists as somebody who should at least get an invitation to these events. This may just be my fantasy, but I did get 2 different invitations.
Wednesday night: I am joining my AWS chapter in Napa for our monthly meeting which, this month, includes a tasting of ( you guessed it ) Italian Wines. I am trying to get them interested (actually totally awesomely committed) in having me teach them the French Wine Scholar next spring.
Thursday night: I volunteer for ZAP - The Zinfandel Advocates and Producers. They have a large (7000-10,000 attendees) Zinfandel only wine tasting each year in San Francisco at the end of January. I have worked at and tasted at several of these events. This year Susan and I are team leads for one of the volunteer groups, and this is one of the organizing meetings where we are checking out a new venue and planning out duties and team structures.
Friday: I meet with Master-of-Wine candidate Maureen Downey to go over a review of tasting notes as I continue to prepare for my WSET Diploma Unit-6 Fortified Wines exam the first week of November.
And, in between all of this I am still tasting my Ports, Madeiras, Sherries, VDNs and studying on everything you could want to know about fortified wines.
The life of a wine student.
john
An added benefit is that with a Napa and San Francisco nearby there is usually some sort of Wine event going on. Next week will be untypical, however illustrative of some of the opportunities.
Let me start with Last week First. Susan and I volunteered to work at the Lodi Appellation at Treasure Island event. We are on the volunteer list for several wine organizations and we trade off 2-3 hours of work against the entry fee (often $50-$60) and then spend 2-3 hours tasting wine for free.
Lodi Appellation is in the California Central Valley however it gets cool delta breezes so that it can still make some pretty nice wines. Lodi is probably best known for big, jammy Old Vine Zinfandels, although they also do a great job with a number of other grapes as well. Treasure Island was a fun venue. It sits in San Francisco Bay with the City of Oakland off the eastern shore and San Francisco off the western one. You get a great view no matter which way you look. One additional benefit was that it was San Francisco Fleet Week during which the city honors the US Navy although we also get some ships from our Canadian Friends as well. Every Year there is an awesome airshow by the Blue Angels and others, this year the Canadian Snowbirds and some aircraft, I know not what, but the sound of its engines alone and the fact that I think it broke the sound barrier a couple of times was enough to keep me astounded. At times the jets would fly low level right over the island and that is just one of the pleasures of this event.
With last week out of the way, we look at next week.
Tomorrow (Saturday) I am tasting at Jacksons a liquor store a few towns over. Always a fun event. This week it will be an Italian distributor who is leading us through a tasting of 12 Italian wines. the wines range from a Moscato and a Fiano on the white side to a Montalcino and a Nebbiolo among the reds.
Tuesday: I am pouring wines for a tasting event of the Winemakers of Collio Italy at a Vespa scooter showroom in San Francisco. Collio is located in the North East corner of Italy on the border of Slovania, this area has become noted for its excellent aromatic dry white wines. Several winemakers are flying to the US to pour their wines and represent their wineries. I will pour the wines and tell the wine story of one of the wineries that didn't make the trip. So I am studying their web site and learning about the area in general. All part of being a wine student.
Wednesday morning: I am a taster at another Italian Wine event in SF. This one is the "Simply Italian" wine tasting. It is a walk around tasting of Italian Wine producers. I was invited as a member of the Society of Wine Educators, but also (maybe, I hope) that my name is getting on various lists as somebody who should at least get an invitation to these events. This may just be my fantasy, but I did get 2 different invitations.
Wednesday night: I am joining my AWS chapter in Napa for our monthly meeting which, this month, includes a tasting of ( you guessed it ) Italian Wines. I am trying to get them interested (actually totally awesomely committed) in having me teach them the French Wine Scholar next spring.
Thursday night: I volunteer for ZAP - The Zinfandel Advocates and Producers. They have a large (7000-10,000 attendees) Zinfandel only wine tasting each year in San Francisco at the end of January. I have worked at and tasted at several of these events. This year Susan and I are team leads for one of the volunteer groups, and this is one of the organizing meetings where we are checking out a new venue and planning out duties and team structures.
Friday: I meet with Master-of-Wine candidate Maureen Downey to go over a review of tasting notes as I continue to prepare for my WSET Diploma Unit-6 Fortified Wines exam the first week of November.
And, in between all of this I am still tasting my Ports, Madeiras, Sherries, VDNs and studying on everything you could want to know about fortified wines.
The life of a wine student.
john
Friday, October 7, 2011
Chateauneuf du Pape
Last week, my American Wine Society Chapter held a tasting of Chateauneuf du Pape wines.
The meeting was held at a member's home in Napa. (If you ever read this, thanks Marc and nancy!)
Each participant brought a bottle of CNDP and an appetizer to pass and our host gave a short talk on Chateauneuf du pape wines in general. I think we had 13 wines but 2 were duplicates so there were 11 different tastes. The wines ranged from a 1992 (orange rim, slight tannin, all fruit gone) to a a couple of 2003 wines that were pretty good to a few newer 2009 vintages that were still slightly tannic.
In general I can't say that I am a fan of CNDP. I like the main grapes of the blend, Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre, but i still find the blend to be a little rustic and course. Syrah of course has high tannins - supposedly one of the 4 highest tannin grapes in the world along with Cabernet sauvignon, Tannat and Nebbiolo. Maybe the CNDP producers haven't figured out how to mellow them out without losing flavor in the process. In reading about these wines it seems that the winemakers throw the stems into the tanks as well adding more tannins. This may be part of the problem.
By the way, I took a chance and decided that one COULD serve fish with red wine so I took a tray of California roll sushi and my claim is that it goes well with the not-too-thick CNDP wines. Plus easy to get and a good finger food.
It was surprisingly hard to find a bottle of Chateauneuf wine. I wen to 2 different grocery stores, and 1 liquor store , that usually have pretty good selections. I wasn't finding anything. I finally found 1 bottle and bought it, hoping that it was a decent wine. It wasn't. It was a 2009, still too young and had kind of harsh tannins.
Did you ever wonder HOW Chateauneuf got its name ( The pope's new house/castle/palace )?
These things intrigue me so I am posting some research that i did below.
========== the following is mostly taken from Wikipedia with some rewording ==============
Clement V (1305–1314) became the next pope. He was born in Gascony in southern France, but not directly connected to the French court. He decided not to move to Rome but instead took up residence in Avignon. For the next 72 years this became the home of the popes. They drank Burgundy wine. (Note, the vineyards on the slopes of Burgundy's famous escarpment the Cotes d'Or, developed and maintained by the Clergy, also had a hierarchy. The bishops at received the less prestigious wines from the shallow soils at the top of the slopes, The cardinals' wine came from the sometimes too rich soils at bottom, the Pope's came from the best vineyards in mid slopes). However the rest of the clergy drank and promoted the local wine around the Popes summer home near Avignon. And thus it began.
john
The meeting was held at a member's home in Napa. (If you ever read this, thanks Marc and nancy!)
Each participant brought a bottle of CNDP and an appetizer to pass and our host gave a short talk on Chateauneuf du pape wines in general. I think we had 13 wines but 2 were duplicates so there were 11 different tastes. The wines ranged from a 1992 (orange rim, slight tannin, all fruit gone) to a a couple of 2003 wines that were pretty good to a few newer 2009 vintages that were still slightly tannic.
In general I can't say that I am a fan of CNDP. I like the main grapes of the blend, Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre, but i still find the blend to be a little rustic and course. Syrah of course has high tannins - supposedly one of the 4 highest tannin grapes in the world along with Cabernet sauvignon, Tannat and Nebbiolo. Maybe the CNDP producers haven't figured out how to mellow them out without losing flavor in the process. In reading about these wines it seems that the winemakers throw the stems into the tanks as well adding more tannins. This may be part of the problem.
By the way, I took a chance and decided that one COULD serve fish with red wine so I took a tray of California roll sushi and my claim is that it goes well with the not-too-thick CNDP wines. Plus easy to get and a good finger food.
It was surprisingly hard to find a bottle of Chateauneuf wine. I wen to 2 different grocery stores, and 1 liquor store , that usually have pretty good selections. I wasn't finding anything. I finally found 1 bottle and bought it, hoping that it was a decent wine. It wasn't. It was a 2009, still too young and had kind of harsh tannins.
Did you ever wonder HOW Chateauneuf got its name ( The pope's new house/castle/palace )?
These things intrigue me so I am posting some research that i did below.
========== the following is mostly taken from Wikipedia with some rewording ==============
During the dark ages a conflict rose between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor over who held power over temporal life. the HRE was the protector of society and the Church, but the Pope usually was responsible for acknowledging and crowning him. After the arrest of a French Bishop by Phillip IV in 1301, the Pope issued the bull Salvator Mundi, retracting all privileges granted to the French king by previous popes, and a few weeks later another one with charges against the king, summoning him before a council to Rome. In a bold assertion of Papal sovereignty, Boniface declared that "God has placed us over the Kings and Kingdoms."
In response, Philippe wrote "Your venerable conceitedness may know, that we are nobody's vassal in temporal matters," and called for a meeting of the council of the lords of France, who had supported his position. The King of France issued charges of sodomy, simony (selling indulgences), sorcery, and heresy against the Pope and in turn, summoned him before the French council.
The Pope was preparing a bull that would excommunicate the King of France and put the interdict over the country, and to depose the entire clergy of France, when in September of 1303, William Norgaret the strongest critic of the Papacy in the French inner circle, led a delegation to Rome, with intentionally loose orders by the king to bring the pope, if necessary by force, before a council to rule on the charges brought against him.
Nogaret coordinated with the cardinals of the Colonna family, long standing rivals against whom the pope had even preached a crusade earlier in his Papacy. (Think of a Hatfield / McCoy feud with the papacy as being the prize. Or even better, Capulet and Montague only without the love story). In 1303 French and Italian troops attacked the pope in his home town, and arrested him. He was freed three days later by the population of Anagni. However, Boniface VIII, then 68 years of age, was deeply shattered by this attack on his own person and died a few weeks later.
Following the impasse during the resulting conclave to elect a new pope and to escape from the infighting of the powerful families that had produced earlier Popes, the Roman Church looked for a safer place and found it in Avignon, which was surrounded by the lands that had been donated to the church years earlier. (Historical note: Southern France wasn't really part of France at this time. parts belonged to Spain and Parts to Italy). During the conflict between the Italian rivals, French Cardinals were able to elect one of their own as Pope.
Clement V (1305–1314) became the next pope. He was born in Gascony in southern France, but not directly connected to the French court. He decided not to move to Rome but instead took up residence in Avignon. For the next 72 years this became the home of the popes. They drank Burgundy wine. (Note, the vineyards on the slopes of Burgundy's famous escarpment the Cotes d'Or, developed and maintained by the Clergy, also had a hierarchy. The bishops at received the less prestigious wines from the shallow soils at the top of the slopes, The cardinals' wine came from the sometimes too rich soils at bottom, the Pope's came from the best vineyards in mid slopes). However the rest of the clergy drank and promoted the local wine around the Popes summer home near Avignon. And thus it began.
john
Unit 6 - redo
Having finished my WSET Unit 1 paper, and having caught up on most of the blogging that I couldn't find the energy to do while working on the paper, I am now turning my focus back onto Unit 6 - Fortified Wines.
Actually part of my focus has been there for several weeks. I bought another set of wines and we have been tasting them for the last month and taking notes so that i can learn the characteristics of the wines and the differences between them. Susan and i also do backyard blind tastings where we taste the wines and try to guess what they are.
Last time I had tasted 15 wines in preparation. (See the picture at bottom).This time I added 11 more - with a couple of duplicates.
This batch of wines include:
Madeiras have a baked sugar aroma / taste. Like peanut brittle. Also high acidity.
Amontillados have a light body, the dry amontillado has a Sherry nose. Caramel is less baked.
Tawny Port is sweeter, more body than either of the above.
Harveys Bristol is generally quite complex with a slight Sherry taste and a long finish.
PX is brown and awesome. You can't mistake that flavor.
Rutherglen is trickier. Tawny color like a 10 y/o Tawny port, but just different flavor profie.
Rasteau is also tawny, but with little more vegetal flavors than the Rutherglen.
Anyhow - another month of tasting and going over the notes on the 150 topics on fortified wine from the Oxford Companion that will form the core of the test material.
The other thing that I do as part of my studying is check the web sites for the big producers. I can generally get some additional history on them, or notes about current activities. I think ( hope ) that having some current knowledge shows extra study and can help raise a grade.
john
Actually part of my focus has been there for several weeks. I bought another set of wines and we have been tasting them for the last month and taking notes so that i can learn the characteristics of the wines and the differences between them. Susan and i also do backyard blind tastings where we taste the wines and try to guess what they are.
Last time I had tasted 15 wines in preparation. (See the picture at bottom).This time I added 11 more - with a couple of duplicates.
This batch of wines include:
- A dry amontillado sherry : higher quality than last time. Less caramel, more character. Sherry nose.
- A medium dry Amontillado : not a lot of aroma, but good in the mouth. good quality.
- 10 y/o Bual Madeira : Rich, 'baked' but still a lot of acidity. This is how you tell a Madeira.
- 'Rainwater' Madeira :
- 10 y/o Tawny port : Rich, slightly sweet. We killed this bottle right away. Yum.
- Harveys Bristol Cream : generally complex with a long finish.
- Reserve Port : slightly better character than Ruby.
- Pedro Ximenez : Very rich, sweet but not too syrupy. Liquid golden raisins, figs. Brown in color.
- LBV Port : Rich, slightly sweet, complex, one of my favorites.
- Muscat of Rutherglen. Amber to tawny. Flavorful but not a lot of Muscat fruit.
- Muscat - Rivesalte. Golden, fresh, fruity Muscat flavors.
- Rasteau - aged fortified Grenache. Dried fruit flavors. Rich. Complex.
Madeiras have a baked sugar aroma / taste. Like peanut brittle. Also high acidity.
Amontillados have a light body, the dry amontillado has a Sherry nose. Caramel is less baked.
Tawny Port is sweeter, more body than either of the above.
Harveys Bristol is generally quite complex with a slight Sherry taste and a long finish.
PX is brown and awesome. You can't mistake that flavor.
Rutherglen is trickier. Tawny color like a 10 y/o Tawny port, but just different flavor profie.
Rasteau is also tawny, but with little more vegetal flavors than the Rutherglen.
Anyhow - another month of tasting and going over the notes on the 150 topics on fortified wine from the Oxford Companion that will form the core of the test material.
The other thing that I do as part of my studying is check the web sites for the big producers. I can generally get some additional history on them, or notes about current activities. I think ( hope ) that having some current knowledge shows extra study and can help raise a grade.
john
IMW - Annual Champagne Tasting
On Sept 26, the Institute of Masters of Wine, North America presented their annual Champagne tasting.
This was a paid event, $50 per person, and the fees go back to the IMW in order to build up their treasury and offer other events throughout the year. Last spring they offered a class on the Terroirs of Bordeaux with 6 Bordeaux vignerons presenting and discussing their properties and their wines. I had thought that this class may be the same.
Earlier this year, I had also attended another Champagne tasting sponsored by the Champagne producers of France, and I was looking forward to tasting them again, no matter what the format. I have no doubts. I like Champagne.
The IMW event was held in San Francisco's Ferry building, in a relatively small room, but the attendance was limited to just 100 people in order to prevent over-crowding, so while tight, it wasn't painful.
There were about 76 wines, most you would pour yourself, though several big name wines were poured for us to prevent hogging. I had it in my mind to taste as many as possible. This was made possible because the organizers had placed a number of spit buckets on a table in the middle of the room and I made constant use of them. By the way, I have to make this comment here. Some tasting events put the dump buckets on the serving tables and I think this is a horrible idea. Not only have I mistaken water pitchers for dump buckets ( Everybody has done this at least once, haven't they ?), but when the buckets are on the table some tasters tend to plant themselves at the table and make it hard for the rest to get a chance to either pour their wine out or get a new one. Having the buckets away from the tables generally keeps the crowds from congregating.
But not always. As soon as the doors opened, a subset of tasters went immediately to the "Vintage" Champagne tables and I swear never moved from there for the rest of the event. This was sad because they missed a lot of great tasting wines including a couple of Grand Cru non-vintage Champagnes. Also some of the vintage wines were spread out among the Blanc de blanc.
Another area that I think didn't get the attention that they deserved were the "Dose'" or slightly sweet Champagnes. There were only a couple of examples which may be why people missed them, but the two that i tasted were exquisite.
My wife, Susan, is a Champagne fan. She always regrets that we don't drink it enough. So I was happy that she went to the event with me, because I was hoping to give her a treat and I always value her insights.
Unlike the Vintage snobs, we just started on one wall of the room and worked our way counter-clockwise around the room from wine to wine. First the Non Vintage, then Blanc de blancs, then the Vintage wines, then the Rose / Blancs de Noir, then finally the Dose' off dry wines.
Here are my thoughts.
Susan noticed it first, but some Champagnes just disappear in your mouth! You take a sip and as you are evaluating it, poof! it's gone. You haven't swallowed, you didn't drool, the bubbles just sort of disappear and you forget that you even have wine in your mouth. It is actually kind of fun.
On the other hand, sometimes I would take a big sip and the wine would just fill up my mouth. It is like the CO2 just puffed my cheeks out. Also fun.
I was thinking that I could never be a Champagne connoisseur, that I couldn't tell the differences between several of the wines. That they all tasted the same. However, looking back over my notes, I am kind of surprised because few of my comments are identical. Considering that I was holding a glass in one hand, and my tasting notes in the other, and trying to write something about each wine, I am pleased that I got as much written as I did. This was actually another advantage of having the spit buckets in the middle of the room. There was always a chance to write after I poured out my glass.
OK, I need another note here: Some people carry around red plastic cups to spit into and then at a strategic time they pour them out. I think this is great, BUT ... there is no way you can carry a red plastic cup, and your glass, and your tasting notes, and a pen at the same time. If there is someone of you out there that can accomplish this, then my hat is off to you, you are way more coordinated than I.
Here are some of my comments about the wines in general: Ripe apple, medium ripe apple, over ripe apple, rotten apple, Ripe but neutral, No bubbles (common for an old vintage), mellow / toast, vanilla, yeasty / biscuit, chocolate (!), big fruit, slight spice, rich, nutty, creamy, low acid, high acid, melon aromas, mouth filling, very mouth filling, disappears in mouth, nice.
The vintage wines tended to be not as bubbly and they tended to have more of a ripe apple aroma and taste.
There were only a couple of Grand Cru wines in the tasting. I tried to keep my eyes out for them. But a comment about that. In Champagne, we have Grand Cru villages, not GC vineyards as in Burgundy and not GC producers as in Bordeaux. So, a producer in Champagne can actually have poor grapes and make poor wines but still call his wine Grand Cru as long as all the grapes came from vineyards in a GC village. The expectation, in general, however, is that these wines ought to show a little more quality, and so far, I think they do. So i was a little disappointed that there weren't more GC wines represented.
I think I would do this again, at least one more time, to hone what I have learned so far. Maybe, however, I can get what I want by presenting a Champagne tasting to my AWS group, where there could be more of an opportunity to sit and discuss the wines as well. need to look into that.
john
This was a paid event, $50 per person, and the fees go back to the IMW in order to build up their treasury and offer other events throughout the year. Last spring they offered a class on the Terroirs of Bordeaux with 6 Bordeaux vignerons presenting and discussing their properties and their wines. I had thought that this class may be the same.
Earlier this year, I had also attended another Champagne tasting sponsored by the Champagne producers of France, and I was looking forward to tasting them again, no matter what the format. I have no doubts. I like Champagne.
The IMW event was held in San Francisco's Ferry building, in a relatively small room, but the attendance was limited to just 100 people in order to prevent over-crowding, so while tight, it wasn't painful.
There were about 76 wines, most you would pour yourself, though several big name wines were poured for us to prevent hogging. I had it in my mind to taste as many as possible. This was made possible because the organizers had placed a number of spit buckets on a table in the middle of the room and I made constant use of them. By the way, I have to make this comment here. Some tasting events put the dump buckets on the serving tables and I think this is a horrible idea. Not only have I mistaken water pitchers for dump buckets ( Everybody has done this at least once, haven't they ?), but when the buckets are on the table some tasters tend to plant themselves at the table and make it hard for the rest to get a chance to either pour their wine out or get a new one. Having the buckets away from the tables generally keeps the crowds from congregating.
But not always. As soon as the doors opened, a subset of tasters went immediately to the "Vintage" Champagne tables and I swear never moved from there for the rest of the event. This was sad because they missed a lot of great tasting wines including a couple of Grand Cru non-vintage Champagnes. Also some of the vintage wines were spread out among the Blanc de blanc.
Another area that I think didn't get the attention that they deserved were the "Dose'" or slightly sweet Champagnes. There were only a couple of examples which may be why people missed them, but the two that i tasted were exquisite.
My wife, Susan, is a Champagne fan. She always regrets that we don't drink it enough. So I was happy that she went to the event with me, because I was hoping to give her a treat and I always value her insights.
Unlike the Vintage snobs, we just started on one wall of the room and worked our way counter-clockwise around the room from wine to wine. First the Non Vintage, then Blanc de blancs, then the Vintage wines, then the Rose / Blancs de Noir, then finally the Dose' off dry wines.
Here are my thoughts.
Susan noticed it first, but some Champagnes just disappear in your mouth! You take a sip and as you are evaluating it, poof! it's gone. You haven't swallowed, you didn't drool, the bubbles just sort of disappear and you forget that you even have wine in your mouth. It is actually kind of fun.
On the other hand, sometimes I would take a big sip and the wine would just fill up my mouth. It is like the CO2 just puffed my cheeks out. Also fun.
I was thinking that I could never be a Champagne connoisseur, that I couldn't tell the differences between several of the wines. That they all tasted the same. However, looking back over my notes, I am kind of surprised because few of my comments are identical. Considering that I was holding a glass in one hand, and my tasting notes in the other, and trying to write something about each wine, I am pleased that I got as much written as I did. This was actually another advantage of having the spit buckets in the middle of the room. There was always a chance to write after I poured out my glass.
OK, I need another note here: Some people carry around red plastic cups to spit into and then at a strategic time they pour them out. I think this is great, BUT ... there is no way you can carry a red plastic cup, and your glass, and your tasting notes, and a pen at the same time. If there is someone of you out there that can accomplish this, then my hat is off to you, you are way more coordinated than I.
Here are some of my comments about the wines in general: Ripe apple, medium ripe apple, over ripe apple, rotten apple, Ripe but neutral, No bubbles (common for an old vintage), mellow / toast, vanilla, yeasty / biscuit, chocolate (!), big fruit, slight spice, rich, nutty, creamy, low acid, high acid, melon aromas, mouth filling, very mouth filling, disappears in mouth, nice.
The vintage wines tended to be not as bubbly and they tended to have more of a ripe apple aroma and taste.
There were only a couple of Grand Cru wines in the tasting. I tried to keep my eyes out for them. But a comment about that. In Champagne, we have Grand Cru villages, not GC vineyards as in Burgundy and not GC producers as in Bordeaux. So, a producer in Champagne can actually have poor grapes and make poor wines but still call his wine Grand Cru as long as all the grapes came from vineyards in a GC village. The expectation, in general, however, is that these wines ought to show a little more quality, and so far, I think they do. So i was a little disappointed that there weren't more GC wines represented.
I think I would do this again, at least one more time, to hone what I have learned so far. Maybe, however, I can get what I want by presenting a Champagne tasting to my AWS group, where there could be more of an opportunity to sit and discuss the wines as well. need to look into that.
john
Tasting the Norton Grape
I was fortunate earlier last month to be invited to taste 28 wines made from the Norton grape, one of the truly American grapes and wines. And one that few people on the West Coast have probably never heard about.
The tasting was conducted by Barbara Trigg, the "Best of Appellation" coordinator for Appellation America, a wine journal that includes editorials from some of the best known and interesting wine writers, as well as formal tastings that can alert the reader where to find some of the best wines around.
Barbara had heard of the Norton grape several months earlier, became intrigued with its history, and determined that she should find some great examples and then let her readers know about them. She wrote to all the wineries that she could find that advertised Nortons, got a bottle from each of them, and then called together her tasting panel.
Now, I can't just taste the wine without knowing something about the grape, so I did some research beforehand. The Norton grape, also known as Cynthiana, was bred by a Dr. Norton living near Richmond Virginia in 1820. The good doctor is not totally sure how the grape came about except that he recounts that he had a "Bland" (another grape variety that has rarely been heard of, and may no longer exist) growing in his vineyard near a "Millers Pinot" (we know it has Pinot Muniere). They may have fortuitously cross pollinated and Dr. Norton's genius was that he actually recognized that a new grape had formed. He planted the seeds and selected out the offspring for propagation.
The Norton doesn't have the 'foxy' taste that some native American Labrusca vines impart to their wines. This may be because the "Bland" parent of the grape might not have been a V. labrusca but instead a hybrid between a Vitis aestivalis and a Chasselas, a very old and popular grape in eastern France and Switzerland. (Some think it started in ancient Egypt). In any event, the Norton made wines good enough to win "Best of Show" in an international tasting in Vienna Austria in 1873. It is also the state grape of Missouri.
Armed with this background knowledge, I was ready to taste. the tasting itself took a little over 2 hours. There were 7 of us, independently making our own notes and then we came together at the end to come up with some general characteristics of Norton and our opinions on the best wines we had tasted that day.
I am not going to name the "best of" wines because I am not really sure how others rated them, you should be able to find that out at the Appellation America website (link above). I can say this, however.
The Norton is a red wine that has a characteristic taste that most of the wines we tasted exhibited. Several also showed some red fruit / raspberry flavors. But like any group of wines, while the characteristic core taste was generally apparent, there were variations on the amount of oak and levels of intensity. The grape seems to make a wine that is generally acidic, I believe that it is high in Malic acid (think green apple tartness) and some of that tends to carry over. The tannins are soft and relatively low for such a deeply pigmented wine. Most of our wines came in around 13% alcohol which since I am used to California high-alcohol reds, was quite pleasant to notice, or in this case, not to notice.
One wine that I think is probably immensely popular is Chrysalis Vineyards "Sarah's Patio Red". this is a $15 light ruby red, almost a rose', it has great fruit flavors, raspberry highlights, and a slight cranberry finish. It is an off-dry / semi sweet summer favorite. As Chrysalis suggests: a great patio wine.
Chrysalis stands out because it claims to be and probably is, the largest producer of Norton wines in the world. They consider Norton to be the "Real American Grape". Some of us Left Coasties, of course, think that should be Zinfandel or perhaps Petite Sirah / Durif. But who is to quibble. America is a big country and should have several real grapes. Norton can be one of them.
john
The tasting was conducted by Barbara Trigg, the "Best of Appellation" coordinator for Appellation America, a wine journal that includes editorials from some of the best known and interesting wine writers, as well as formal tastings that can alert the reader where to find some of the best wines around.
Barbara had heard of the Norton grape several months earlier, became intrigued with its history, and determined that she should find some great examples and then let her readers know about them. She wrote to all the wineries that she could find that advertised Nortons, got a bottle from each of them, and then called together her tasting panel.
Now, I can't just taste the wine without knowing something about the grape, so I did some research beforehand. The Norton grape, also known as Cynthiana, was bred by a Dr. Norton living near Richmond Virginia in 1820. The good doctor is not totally sure how the grape came about except that he recounts that he had a "Bland" (another grape variety that has rarely been heard of, and may no longer exist) growing in his vineyard near a "Millers Pinot" (we know it has Pinot Muniere). They may have fortuitously cross pollinated and Dr. Norton's genius was that he actually recognized that a new grape had formed. He planted the seeds and selected out the offspring for propagation.
The Norton doesn't have the 'foxy' taste that some native American Labrusca vines impart to their wines. This may be because the "Bland" parent of the grape might not have been a V. labrusca but instead a hybrid between a Vitis aestivalis and a Chasselas, a very old and popular grape in eastern France and Switzerland. (Some think it started in ancient Egypt). In any event, the Norton made wines good enough to win "Best of Show" in an international tasting in Vienna Austria in 1873. It is also the state grape of Missouri.
Armed with this background knowledge, I was ready to taste. the tasting itself took a little over 2 hours. There were 7 of us, independently making our own notes and then we came together at the end to come up with some general characteristics of Norton and our opinions on the best wines we had tasted that day.
I am not going to name the "best of" wines because I am not really sure how others rated them, you should be able to find that out at the Appellation America website (link above). I can say this, however.
The Norton is a red wine that has a characteristic taste that most of the wines we tasted exhibited. Several also showed some red fruit / raspberry flavors. But like any group of wines, while the characteristic core taste was generally apparent, there were variations on the amount of oak and levels of intensity. The grape seems to make a wine that is generally acidic, I believe that it is high in Malic acid (think green apple tartness) and some of that tends to carry over. The tannins are soft and relatively low for such a deeply pigmented wine. Most of our wines came in around 13% alcohol which since I am used to California high-alcohol reds, was quite pleasant to notice, or in this case, not to notice.
One wine that I think is probably immensely popular is Chrysalis Vineyards "Sarah's Patio Red". this is a $15 light ruby red, almost a rose', it has great fruit flavors, raspberry highlights, and a slight cranberry finish. It is an off-dry / semi sweet summer favorite. As Chrysalis suggests: a great patio wine.
Chrysalis stands out because it claims to be and probably is, the largest producer of Norton wines in the world. They consider Norton to be the "Real American Grape". Some of us Left Coasties, of course, think that should be Zinfandel or perhaps Petite Sirah / Durif. But who is to quibble. America is a big country and should have several real grapes. Norton can be one of them.
john
WSET Unit 1 - Update
I have not been writing, at least not in this blog, for the last month. I have, however, spent several hours a day on my WSET Unit 1 Course work Assignment.
The CWA is a 3000 word research paper on some aspect of winemaking. The topics change each year, there is 1 topic in the spring and 1 in the fall. You submit either the November paper or the April paper. You only need to submit 1 but you must submit the appropriate one for its due date.
This year's topics were "How advances in science and Technology have affected Winemaking" ( due November ) or "The Presentation and Packaging of Wine" ( due April ). WSET posts the topics for the year in late May so if one were to choose the April paper, they would have almost a year to prepare for it.
In my case, I knew i wanted to write the November paper. I also knew that with my French Wine Scholar studies and test in mid August, that I wouldn't start this paper until then. I also knew that I needed to retake my Unit 6 Fortified Wines exam in November, as well as my studies and exam for Wine Judge Certification - also in November.
So I gave myself just the month of September to write my Unit 1 paper. I took a week longer than planned, but I finished it and packaged it for submission just this morning after my wife read it and corrected my punctuation. (I think I had the correct number of commas in the paper, but according to her, they were all in the wrong places. I needed to add some here and remove some elsewhere.)
The paper is in 4 parts. An introduction that included general advances in technology and winemaking and how they affected the final bottle of wine. Two specific advances with documented and referenced research on each, and then finally, a conclusion that also suggests what advances might occur in the next 20 years.
Picking the topics was easy. I knew what I wanted to talk about, but getting relevant, up-to-date research on the topics was a lot harder. Originally I was going to write about advances in refrigeration and temperature control. We all agree it has been one of the key advances of the last 50 years and improved wines greatly, but try to find and research on the topic !! I headed down that dead end for about two weeks before I gave up and picked a new topic instead.
The other and probably most difficult part of this project was that when I had finished writing my preliminary draft, it was 5600 words long. About 2x longer than WSET would allow. I had to go back in an rip my baby apart. And, when it was done, all my carefully balanced paragraphs, all my nuanced continuity, all of my enlightening examples still needed to hang together and make sense. It was a painful operation and took me a week alone just to perform that operation. Getting rid of the last 500 words was hell. the last 100 even harder.
I finally submitted with 3029 words. I am hoping they only mark me down a point or two for the extra words, but I couldn't cut any more and keep the narrative together. I am hoping that the quality of those extra words will make up for being over on the quantity.
Note: This paper is only 1/2 of the Unit 1 grade. Some time next spring I will take the 2nd part which entails another research paper, but one that we write in a test environment and in 1 hour rather than getting a month to write and edit it. We get the generic brief on the topic for the test paper about 1 month in advance. We get to study all aspects the topic, since we don't know what the actual question will be. Then we walk into the exam with nothing but our pencils and erasers, see what the actual questions is, and then write everything that we can about it.
Each paper counts 50% toward passing Unit 1. Figuring that the exam will be a bear, I spent a lot of time on this paper. I hope I did well.
john
The CWA is a 3000 word research paper on some aspect of winemaking. The topics change each year, there is 1 topic in the spring and 1 in the fall. You submit either the November paper or the April paper. You only need to submit 1 but you must submit the appropriate one for its due date.
This year's topics were "How advances in science and Technology have affected Winemaking" ( due November ) or "The Presentation and Packaging of Wine" ( due April ). WSET posts the topics for the year in late May so if one were to choose the April paper, they would have almost a year to prepare for it.
In my case, I knew i wanted to write the November paper. I also knew that with my French Wine Scholar studies and test in mid August, that I wouldn't start this paper until then. I also knew that I needed to retake my Unit 6 Fortified Wines exam in November, as well as my studies and exam for Wine Judge Certification - also in November.
So I gave myself just the month of September to write my Unit 1 paper. I took a week longer than planned, but I finished it and packaged it for submission just this morning after my wife read it and corrected my punctuation. (I think I had the correct number of commas in the paper, but according to her, they were all in the wrong places. I needed to add some here and remove some elsewhere.)
The paper is in 4 parts. An introduction that included general advances in technology and winemaking and how they affected the final bottle of wine. Two specific advances with documented and referenced research on each, and then finally, a conclusion that also suggests what advances might occur in the next 20 years.
Picking the topics was easy. I knew what I wanted to talk about, but getting relevant, up-to-date research on the topics was a lot harder. Originally I was going to write about advances in refrigeration and temperature control. We all agree it has been one of the key advances of the last 50 years and improved wines greatly, but try to find and research on the topic !! I headed down that dead end for about two weeks before I gave up and picked a new topic instead.
The other and probably most difficult part of this project was that when I had finished writing my preliminary draft, it was 5600 words long. About 2x longer than WSET would allow. I had to go back in an rip my baby apart. And, when it was done, all my carefully balanced paragraphs, all my nuanced continuity, all of my enlightening examples still needed to hang together and make sense. It was a painful operation and took me a week alone just to perform that operation. Getting rid of the last 500 words was hell. the last 100 even harder.
I finally submitted with 3029 words. I am hoping they only mark me down a point or two for the extra words, but I couldn't cut any more and keep the narrative together. I am hoping that the quality of those extra words will make up for being over on the quantity.
Note: This paper is only 1/2 of the Unit 1 grade. Some time next spring I will take the 2nd part which entails another research paper, but one that we write in a test environment and in 1 hour rather than getting a month to write and edit it. We get the generic brief on the topic for the test paper about 1 month in advance. We get to study all aspects the topic, since we don't know what the actual question will be. Then we walk into the exam with nothing but our pencils and erasers, see what the actual questions is, and then write everything that we can about it.
Each paper counts 50% toward passing Unit 1. Figuring that the exam will be a bear, I spent a lot of time on this paper. I hope I did well.
john
Saturdays at Jackson's
One of the things that I have to do is to taste different wines. I need to understand what makes a wine "good". I also need to get experience with a lot of wines that might not normally appear on my dinner table, which in truth is a relatively small set of wines that I know and enjoy.
Since I am retired and living on a fixed income, I also need to be able to do this without spending a lot of money on wines. Fat chance on that! But I have to try.
So one of things that give my life hope is Saturdays at Jacksons. Every Saturday ( they have been doing this for years - more than 12, maybe as many as 20 ) at Jackson's Wine and Spirits in Lafayette, Ca. there is a back-room wine tasting.
You pay $20, pick up a glass, go through the "Employees Only" swinging doors and you now get the chance to meet with other wine lovers and taste 12 wines from around the world, generally 1-2 beers, and nibble on some bree and crackers, if you are so inclined.
The event 'starts' at 1PM and goes until 4PM although people can come and go as they please and taste at their own pace. One time I got there at 2:30 and was the first taster of the day. Other times there will be 7 or 8 tasting and commenting at any one time. When this happens, it is great because you get to hear what others think about a certain wine and you get to pick up aromas, flavors and faults that you might have missed.
Jackson's is great about coming up with a good assortment of wines. Maybe 7 will be from Napa or Sonoma and 5 will be from Europe. The menu for 1 week included: A sparkling Brut, a Bourgogne Blanc, a Chablis, a Chardonnay, a Chianti Classico, Moulin a Vent (Cru Beaujolais), Pinot Noir, a Saint-Emilion (Bordeaux), 2 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chilean Syrah, and Zinfandel.
Plus beer, plus cheese, plus interesting opinions and conversation. How can you go wrong ?
It is a great deal, and I expect they lose money each week. They might pull in $140-$200 in tasting fees, but they probably spend an extra $60 over that in the wine selections.
For a wine student, who preparing for his WSET Diploma Unit 3 - wines of the world exam, probably the toughest one that they offer, next to being an Advanced Sommelier, an afternoon at Jacksons is not only fun, which it is, but it is homework as well.
I would recommend any wine student find a place like this, or if you can't fine one, get together with an active American Wine Society Chapter, and if there is not one in your area then start one. Or just find a group of friends that are willing to taste and bring a bottle to each tasting. It will make a big difference in your studies.
john
Since I am retired and living on a fixed income, I also need to be able to do this without spending a lot of money on wines. Fat chance on that! But I have to try.
So one of things that give my life hope is Saturdays at Jacksons. Every Saturday ( they have been doing this for years - more than 12, maybe as many as 20 ) at Jackson's Wine and Spirits in Lafayette, Ca. there is a back-room wine tasting.
You pay $20, pick up a glass, go through the "Employees Only" swinging doors and you now get the chance to meet with other wine lovers and taste 12 wines from around the world, generally 1-2 beers, and nibble on some bree and crackers, if you are so inclined.
The event 'starts' at 1PM and goes until 4PM although people can come and go as they please and taste at their own pace. One time I got there at 2:30 and was the first taster of the day. Other times there will be 7 or 8 tasting and commenting at any one time. When this happens, it is great because you get to hear what others think about a certain wine and you get to pick up aromas, flavors and faults that you might have missed.
Jackson's is great about coming up with a good assortment of wines. Maybe 7 will be from Napa or Sonoma and 5 will be from Europe. The menu for 1 week included: A sparkling Brut, a Bourgogne Blanc, a Chablis, a Chardonnay, a Chianti Classico, Moulin a Vent (Cru Beaujolais), Pinot Noir, a Saint-Emilion (Bordeaux), 2 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon, a Chilean Syrah, and Zinfandel.
Plus beer, plus cheese, plus interesting opinions and conversation. How can you go wrong ?
It is a great deal, and I expect they lose money each week. They might pull in $140-$200 in tasting fees, but they probably spend an extra $60 over that in the wine selections.
For a wine student, who preparing for his WSET Diploma Unit 3 - wines of the world exam, probably the toughest one that they offer, next to being an Advanced Sommelier, an afternoon at Jacksons is not only fun, which it is, but it is homework as well.
I would recommend any wine student find a place like this, or if you can't fine one, get together with an active American Wine Society Chapter, and if there is not one in your area then start one. Or just find a group of friends that are willing to taste and bring a bottle to each tasting. It will make a big difference in your studies.
john
Thursday, September 1, 2011
WSET Unit 1 - The Business of Wine
So I passed the French Wine Scholar exam "with distinction" and met the requirements to apply to teach it. So stay tuned to these pages, as I may have a new topic to write about.
Until that time however, I am turning back to my Wine and Spirits Education Trust certification. As noted before there are 6 Units or modules to the WSET Diploma course. I don't think I ever mentioned what they were, so here they are now:
So I am restudying for Unit 6. I will retake the exam in November. Meanwhile I will be practicing my writing. Another thing that I am working on is to make sure that I don't take more than 5-6 minutes to evaluate a wine and write my notes. On the last test I took 10 minutes a piece for 3 wines and in the end only had 30 minutes to think about and write my 3 essays. I need to build that up so I get 45 minutes of the allotted hour to write essays and only 15 minutes to actually evaluate wines.
So I am back to tasting fortified wines !! :-) I also have extensive notes - 2 or 3 versions of them from the first time I took this test. I have time lines of events within various properties / organizations. I have notes about each property / organization and its history. I will probably review the source material once more ( Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine ) but my notes have the material refined to the important facts and they are all on one document so I don't need to thumb through the OCW to find the topics all over again.
The next thing that is going on is that I am writing the "Course Work Assignment" for Unit 1. The course work assignment is a ~2500 word research paper on a topic that WSET assigns each 6 months. The current assignment ( due in November ) is to write about "How Advances in Science and Technology have affected Winemaking over the Last 50 Years". A sub requirement is to pick an advancement in both Viticulture and Winery Technology and write about how each of these affects the resulting wine. The final requirement is to pick a topic that you think will affect winemaking 20 years from now and describe what its effects will be. Footnotes and Bibliography are required. Even though they don't say ( write ) it out loud, you ARE expected to have a business slant to your theme. So the advances should probably have some aspect of efficiency, quality or economics of wine making behind them.
The Course Work Assignment is one half of the Unit 1 grade. The other half of the exam is a closed book paper that will be written under exam conditions and lasting 1 hour. A generic brief about the topic will be posted 1 month in advance, and you have that time to research the topic. The actual question that will be on the exam is NOT known until you actually sit for the exam. So hopefully your research is comprehensive and you can think on your feet. In this case you are not expected to cite your sources of information.
The Unit 1 exam is offered 2-3 times a year, so even though I am writing the course work assignment for this November I will not take the written exam until later because I want to finish Unit 6 and not sure if I can write for 2 hours in one afternoon without my hand cramping again. Plus I am also studying for my American Wine Society Wine Judge Certification (Year 1) exam that is also being held in November. This is a day long exam with a written test and several tasting tests.
So I am trying to balance my time between these 3 exercises all of which are due in the first 10 days of November. Because of this I decided not to attempt Certified Wine Educator ( CWE ) from the Society of Wine Educators. This exam is offered in Napa several times a year, so I am comfortable putting it off for another 6 months or so. I have already passed their Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) exam and the CWE builds on the Wines of the World aspect of that, plus adds in some of the Wine Components and Wine Faults exercises that I am studying for Wine Judging. So many of these different programs build upon a common knowledge base. Study for one and you become partially prepared for another.
I have a new goal ! I picked this one up from taking the French Wine Scholar course with several Sommeliers. I now want to pass the Certified Sommelier exam from the Court of Master Sommeliers and I will add a new post-nominal ('CS') to my professional titles. I think I have the information required regarding the wines, I just need to learn and practice the proper procedures for opening sparkling wine and serving a table using all the proper procedures.
More fun !!
john
Until that time however, I am turning back to my Wine and Spirits Education Trust certification. As noted before there are 6 Units or modules to the WSET Diploma course. I don't think I ever mentioned what they were, so here they are now:
- The Business of Wine
- Viticulture and Winemaking
- Light Wines of the World
- Spirits
- Champagne and Sparkling Wines
- Fortified Wines
So I am restudying for Unit 6. I will retake the exam in November. Meanwhile I will be practicing my writing. Another thing that I am working on is to make sure that I don't take more than 5-6 minutes to evaluate a wine and write my notes. On the last test I took 10 minutes a piece for 3 wines and in the end only had 30 minutes to think about and write my 3 essays. I need to build that up so I get 45 minutes of the allotted hour to write essays and only 15 minutes to actually evaluate wines.
So I am back to tasting fortified wines !! :-) I also have extensive notes - 2 or 3 versions of them from the first time I took this test. I have time lines of events within various properties / organizations. I have notes about each property / organization and its history. I will probably review the source material once more ( Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine ) but my notes have the material refined to the important facts and they are all on one document so I don't need to thumb through the OCW to find the topics all over again.
The next thing that is going on is that I am writing the "Course Work Assignment" for Unit 1. The course work assignment is a ~2500 word research paper on a topic that WSET assigns each 6 months. The current assignment ( due in November ) is to write about "How Advances in Science and Technology have affected Winemaking over the Last 50 Years". A sub requirement is to pick an advancement in both Viticulture and Winery Technology and write about how each of these affects the resulting wine. The final requirement is to pick a topic that you think will affect winemaking 20 years from now and describe what its effects will be. Footnotes and Bibliography are required. Even though they don't say ( write ) it out loud, you ARE expected to have a business slant to your theme. So the advances should probably have some aspect of efficiency, quality or economics of wine making behind them.
The Course Work Assignment is one half of the Unit 1 grade. The other half of the exam is a closed book paper that will be written under exam conditions and lasting 1 hour. A generic brief about the topic will be posted 1 month in advance, and you have that time to research the topic. The actual question that will be on the exam is NOT known until you actually sit for the exam. So hopefully your research is comprehensive and you can think on your feet. In this case you are not expected to cite your sources of information.
The Unit 1 exam is offered 2-3 times a year, so even though I am writing the course work assignment for this November I will not take the written exam until later because I want to finish Unit 6 and not sure if I can write for 2 hours in one afternoon without my hand cramping again. Plus I am also studying for my American Wine Society Wine Judge Certification (Year 1) exam that is also being held in November. This is a day long exam with a written test and several tasting tests.
So I am trying to balance my time between these 3 exercises all of which are due in the first 10 days of November. Because of this I decided not to attempt Certified Wine Educator ( CWE ) from the Society of Wine Educators. This exam is offered in Napa several times a year, so I am comfortable putting it off for another 6 months or so. I have already passed their Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) exam and the CWE builds on the Wines of the World aspect of that, plus adds in some of the Wine Components and Wine Faults exercises that I am studying for Wine Judging. So many of these different programs build upon a common knowledge base. Study for one and you become partially prepared for another.
I have a new goal ! I picked this one up from taking the French Wine Scholar course with several Sommeliers. I now want to pass the Certified Sommelier exam from the Court of Master Sommeliers and I will add a new post-nominal ('CS') to my professional titles. I think I have the information required regarding the wines, I just need to learn and practice the proper procedures for opening sparkling wine and serving a table using all the proper procedures.
More fun !!
john
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Describing a Wine
Some people just want to say "Yumm" or "Yuck" when describing a wine and leave things at that. Either you like it or you don't. Some people will go to the other extreme and use phrases like : "It captures the joy of the moment in an artisanal way without alienating those that typically veer away from the eccentric." which doesn't tell you much either.
I was even an evaluator at a Consumer Wine judging event where the ratings included: "I would take this home for dinner" and "I would recommend this to a friend". These actually were kind of helpful.
In Wine and Spirits Educational Trust, Society of Wine Educators and AWS Wine Judging Certification program, we use the more traditional / standard methods of describing a wine. Characteristics include Color, Aroma, Development, Acidity, Alcohol, Tannins, Flavors, Finish, etc. The categories are similar for each of the programs but not exactly the same. And within the categories there are levels of intensity. A color can be pale, or maybe deep. A wine may be light or full bodied. Sugar can range from Dry to Medium Sweet to Sweet to Luscious.
Many of these terms are somewhat objective and for me this has been one of the harder parts of describing a wine. Is an intensity a medium(-) a medium or a medium(+)? What constitutes a Deep or Opaque color ?
I was going through the study guide for Certified Wine Educator and I came across a set of practical guidelines that I like. Now maybe they teach you these as well in the WSET introductory programs but I jumped over those - so this has always been an issue and a question for for me.
Here are the Society of Wine Educator guidelines. ( Mostly their material with some editorializing by me. I left out some areas, and added some comments, errors and omissions are mine. Otherwise it is close. )
Clarity:
Brilliant : the color jumps out.
Clear : not brilliant, not hazy
Hazy : observable cloudiness
Intensity or Depth
pale : most whites are in this range. If a red, then darker than a rose but still light red.
medium : a well aged or botrytized white. If a red, you can read a newspaper through it when tilted.
deep : you can see the newspaper but can't read it.
opaque : you can't even see the newspaper.
Hue / Color (whites)
platinum : colorless
lemon green : light yellow with a touch of green ( think cool climate Sauvignon blanc )
lemon : pure bright lemon yellow
gold : deeper and darker. You may be wearing a gold ring. It is that color.
amber : almost cola colored with hints of gold.
brown : caramel to molasses. No gold in it.
Hue / Color (rose')
pink : not hot pink, but not quite red. The color of the traffic light you just went through in a hurry.
salmon : pink with a yellow hue. Salmon color is quite descriptive.
orange : some rose wines oxidize and give a light orange color. Grenache is known to do this.
Hue / Color (reds)
purple : a bright plum color.
ruby : deep rich red
garnet : red, but lighter and tending towards brown
tawny : light brown, light cola colored, brick colored
brown : brown is brown. Root beer color.
Other observations
gas, bubbles :
rim variation : should be a broad rim with enough variation to be significant.
many legs / few legs / no legs :
Condition
Clean / unclean : if calling a wine unclean, it must be part of style, and should be a noticeable fault.
Maturity
youthful / young : fruit aromas dominant
developing : some fruit but more tertiary flavors, oak tending to show more
fully developed : fruit is essentially gone. More oak, leather. 'Maturity' should not be confused with 'quality.'
past its prime : oxidation showing. Pruney.
Alcohol I use the "inhale" test. If I inhale with wine in my mouth and :
low : < 11% : don't notice any alcohol
medium (-) : 11-12% : can sense some alcohol
medium : 12-13% : strong alcohol - perhaps some burn.
medium (+) : 13-14% : I usually choke and can't catch my breath
high : > 14%
Acidity
low : not noticeable.
medium (-) : light tartness. Tingle on side of tongue
medium : definite saliva inducing tartness
medium (+) : tart. saliva producing. you are practically drooling
high : they say searing. I say don't confuse it with tannins, though that is easy to do.
Bitter They use the example of Gewurztraminer. To me: A sweet Muscat after taste is often very bitter.
none : they claim most wines don't show bitterness. ( to me unripe tannins are often bitter )
low : a tingle at back of throat
low to high : back of the throat sensation ruins the rest of the flavors.
Tannins (although generally described as astringent / drying. Unripe tannins are also bitter / harsh)
none : most white wines will fall in here
light : a dryness on the finish
medium (-) : some texture, powdery, drying
medium : grainy texture, drys the gums
medium (+) : sensation of texture and graininess all over mouth. ( I often notice some burn )
high : extremely drying. ( I would add harsh, painful )
Note: WSET also qualifies tannins by level of dryness and also by texture: eg 'silk', 'velvet', 'dusty', 'coarse'.
I included some of their terms above.
Sweetness
dry : no perceptible sugar
off Dry : just perceptible sweetness ( some chenin blanc, kabinett level riesling )
medium : noticeable residual sugar ( spatlese riesling, late harvest wines )
medium sweet : ( most Madeiras, Ports, Sweet Sherries )
sweet : Botrytized wines. Sweet Madeira, Pedro Jimenez.
Length ( they only define 'short" after that they say use your best judgment. So I added rest.
short : 1 to 3 seconds
medium : 5-10 seconds
long : 30 seconds or more.
Somebody totally new to wine tasting might wonder why we go all through this work.
There are a couple of reasons :
1) If you don't think about these characteristics - you often don't even notice them or enjoy them.
2) You can actually use this to describe a wine to somebody who understands the terms.
3) Many of these characteristics are "hints" towards what to expect from the wine.
4) Sommeliers combine several of these characteristics to deduce where and how a wine was made.
For example:
A "cloudy" wine may be unfiltered, or may have a yeast or bacteria bloom, leaving bad aromas.
A dark "white" wine may be well past its prime and nasty nasty nasty.
Bubbles in the wine ( assuming it is not meant to be sparkling ) can mean it is turning to vinegar.
A purple wine may be soft, low acidity, easy drinking A red red wine may be acid and require food with it.
A high acid wine is often made in a cooler climate. Riesling is a good example. Champagne is another.
A light colored red is often also a cool climate wine. Pinot noir is a good example.
A light color and high acid often go together. When they don't this tells you something.
( a hint towards the grape variety for example )
So what do you think ? Do you agree with these descriptors ?
Are there some that I missed, or examples that you think we need ?
Leave a comment, and I will include them into the post. Let's make this document useful.
john
I was even an evaluator at a Consumer Wine judging event where the ratings included: "I would take this home for dinner" and "I would recommend this to a friend". These actually were kind of helpful.
In Wine and Spirits Educational Trust, Society of Wine Educators and AWS Wine Judging Certification program, we use the more traditional / standard methods of describing a wine. Characteristics include Color, Aroma, Development, Acidity, Alcohol, Tannins, Flavors, Finish, etc. The categories are similar for each of the programs but not exactly the same. And within the categories there are levels of intensity. A color can be pale, or maybe deep. A wine may be light or full bodied. Sugar can range from Dry to Medium Sweet to Sweet to Luscious.
Many of these terms are somewhat objective and for me this has been one of the harder parts of describing a wine. Is an intensity a medium(-) a medium or a medium(+)? What constitutes a Deep or Opaque color ?
I was going through the study guide for Certified Wine Educator and I came across a set of practical guidelines that I like. Now maybe they teach you these as well in the WSET introductory programs but I jumped over those - so this has always been an issue and a question for for me.
Here are the Society of Wine Educator guidelines. ( Mostly their material with some editorializing by me. I left out some areas, and added some comments, errors and omissions are mine. Otherwise it is close. )
Clarity:
Brilliant : the color jumps out.
Clear : not brilliant, not hazy
Hazy : observable cloudiness
Intensity or Depth
pale : most whites are in this range. If a red, then darker than a rose but still light red.
medium : a well aged or botrytized white. If a red, you can read a newspaper through it when tilted.
deep : you can see the newspaper but can't read it.
opaque : you can't even see the newspaper.
Hue / Color (whites)
platinum : colorless
lemon green : light yellow with a touch of green ( think cool climate Sauvignon blanc )
lemon : pure bright lemon yellow
gold : deeper and darker. You may be wearing a gold ring. It is that color.
amber : almost cola colored with hints of gold.
brown : caramel to molasses. No gold in it.
Hue / Color (rose')
pink : not hot pink, but not quite red. The color of the traffic light you just went through in a hurry.
salmon : pink with a yellow hue. Salmon color is quite descriptive.
orange : some rose wines oxidize and give a light orange color. Grenache is known to do this.
Hue / Color (reds)
purple : a bright plum color.
ruby : deep rich red
garnet : red, but lighter and tending towards brown
tawny : light brown, light cola colored, brick colored
brown : brown is brown. Root beer color.
Other observations
gas, bubbles :
rim variation : should be a broad rim with enough variation to be significant.
many legs / few legs / no legs :
Condition
Clean / unclean : if calling a wine unclean, it must be part of style, and should be a noticeable fault.
Maturity
youthful / young : fruit aromas dominant
developing : some fruit but more tertiary flavors, oak tending to show more
fully developed : fruit is essentially gone. More oak, leather. 'Maturity' should not be confused with 'quality.'
past its prime : oxidation showing. Pruney.
Alcohol I use the "inhale" test. If I inhale with wine in my mouth and :
low : < 11% : don't notice any alcohol
medium (-) : 11-12% : can sense some alcohol
medium : 12-13% : strong alcohol - perhaps some burn.
medium (+) : 13-14% : I usually choke and can't catch my breath
high : > 14%
Acidity
low : not noticeable.
medium (-) : light tartness. Tingle on side of tongue
medium : definite saliva inducing tartness
medium (+) : tart. saliva producing. you are practically drooling
high : they say searing. I say don't confuse it with tannins, though that is easy to do.
Bitter They use the example of Gewurztraminer. To me: A sweet Muscat after taste is often very bitter.
none : they claim most wines don't show bitterness. ( to me unripe tannins are often bitter )
low : a tingle at back of throat
low to high : back of the throat sensation ruins the rest of the flavors.
Tannins (although generally described as astringent / drying. Unripe tannins are also bitter / harsh)
none : most white wines will fall in here
light : a dryness on the finish
medium (-) : some texture, powdery, drying
medium : grainy texture, drys the gums
medium (+) : sensation of texture and graininess all over mouth. ( I often notice some burn )
high : extremely drying. ( I would add harsh, painful )
Note: WSET also qualifies tannins by level of dryness and also by texture: eg 'silk', 'velvet', 'dusty', 'coarse'.
I included some of their terms above.
Sweetness
dry : no perceptible sugar
off Dry : just perceptible sweetness ( some chenin blanc, kabinett level riesling )
medium : noticeable residual sugar ( spatlese riesling, late harvest wines )
medium sweet : ( most Madeiras, Ports, Sweet Sherries )
sweet : Botrytized wines. Sweet Madeira, Pedro Jimenez.
Length ( they only define 'short" after that they say use your best judgment. So I added rest.
short : 1 to 3 seconds
medium : 5-10 seconds
long : 30 seconds or more.
Somebody totally new to wine tasting might wonder why we go all through this work.
There are a couple of reasons :
1) If you don't think about these characteristics - you often don't even notice them or enjoy them.
2) You can actually use this to describe a wine to somebody who understands the terms.
3) Many of these characteristics are "hints" towards what to expect from the wine.
4) Sommeliers combine several of these characteristics to deduce where and how a wine was made.
For example:
A "cloudy" wine may be unfiltered, or may have a yeast or bacteria bloom, leaving bad aromas.
A dark "white" wine may be well past its prime and nasty nasty nasty.
Bubbles in the wine ( assuming it is not meant to be sparkling ) can mean it is turning to vinegar.
A purple wine may be soft, low acidity, easy drinking A red red wine may be acid and require food with it.
A high acid wine is often made in a cooler climate. Riesling is a good example. Champagne is another.
A light colored red is often also a cool climate wine. Pinot noir is a good example.
A light color and high acid often go together. When they don't this tells you something.
( a hint towards the grape variety for example )
So what do you think ? Do you agree with these descriptors ?
Are there some that I missed, or examples that you think we need ?
Leave a comment, and I will include them into the post. Let's make this document useful.
john
Saturday, August 13, 2011
FWS Exam Today
OK, I took my French Wine Scholar exam today. I think I did really well. ( Hope I didn't just jinx myself with that comment ). The exam could have been much harder. One of the other students, Gordana commented that she felt that there must have been trick questions, because in general they seemed so easy.
Now, Gordana is really smart and it won't surprise me to hear she got 100% on the test, and I am even thinking that i got mid 90s on it.
I have been studying - average about 2-3 hours a day, I think, on this test since early June - so about 2 months' worth of work. 120-150 total hours which makes sense for a 250 page text book. I self-studied but did buy / attend a review class ( with lunch !) from San Francisco Wine School and there I met David Glancy, MS,CWE and Maureen Downey, DWS, CWE. David taught me a trick in that he made up mnemonics for everything, and I started doing it too and it really works, even if the mnemonic is a little nutty. For example, Must John Really Make Such Bad Noodles (M,J,R,M,S,B,N) tells me the the order that wine bottles grow in size from Magnum to Nebuchadnezzar. ( It was on the test today! - A Jeroboam is 4 bottles ).
Want to learn the 10 Beaujolais Cru villages ? (North to South) Saint Julia Childs Makes Fine Coffee Mornings, Regularly Before Breakfast. (St Amour, Julienas, Chenas, Moulon-a-vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Regnie, Cote-de-Brouilly, Brouilly).
Need to learn the major Middle-Loire AOCs ? West to East (more or less) : See A Beautiful Lion Sleeping Quietly Be-Cause she is Very Tired. Savennieres, Anjou, Bonnezeau, Coteaux de Layon, Saumur, Quarts de Chaume, (Chaume), Bourgueil, (St Nicolas de Bourgueil), Chinon, Vouvray, Touraine.
It seems ridiculous, but it really works. At least for me, your mileage may vary.
David's colleague Maureen is just a doll. I think she has been studying for her Master of Wine even before she was old enough to drink legally. She gave us an extra, informal, review session on a Sunday morning. And if nothing else, she convinced me that I would do good on the test and that they weren't going to ask the really hard questions on the test. (Name the 4 French AOCs that require oak aging ). This saved a lot of panic studying. Thanks, Maureen. If you ever google yourself, I hope you find this !!
Not that panicking was out of the question, however. I was tense going into the test. Passing grade is a 75%. There are 100 questions. So it wasn't until I got past question #75 - with only a couple of questions that I wasn't sure of, before I started breathing easier. When i figured out that the questions after #85 weren't getting any harder, then I was practically cheering. I was going to do pretty good.
There were a couple of almost trick questions, but the text book had pointed out that we should not mistake Beaumes-de-Venise ( who makes red wine ) with Muscat Beaumes-de-Venise which makes a really good tasting fortified vin du natural out of the white Muscat grape. That one was on the test.
One question that I did have some trouble with, but corrected, is also a common mistake, and I almost fell for it. It regarded Gevrey-Chambertin Grand Cru AOC. ( you wine geeks already know where I am going with this ). Gevrey-Chambertin is a village in the Cotes de Nuits - Burgundy that makes some of the best Pinot Noirs. It has 9 Grand Cru vineyards in the village. And that is the problem. In Burgundy it is the Vineyard that is the AOC not the Village - at least for the Grand Crus. So Chambertin is a Grand Cru AOC. Gevrey-Chambertin is a village, and Gevrey Chambertin Grand Cru AOC is just a big mistake. And they almost had me, because they through in some name I never heard of in another answer and I went for that at first, until I thought things out. A rookie mistake. A lucky catch.
As I mentioned before, I like the French Wine Scholar program, the text has some errors but in general is very good. The on-line study aid pretty much mirrors the book, and could probably be bypassed, but I bought it in combination with the review session, the exam fees, and a free lunch, so I thought it a good deal. Plus the quizzes for each of the on-line modules are invaluable. We talked about this during the review session and decided that the quizzes on the on-line review are actually harder than the final exam. David mentioned that he did the review quizzes over and over until he got a perfect score on each of them, then he took the exam. I thought that a good idea, so I included it in my study program, and i think it works.
Like most of the tests I have taken for wine certification, this was a fair test. You can do well on it with a reasonable amount of study. It seems over-whelming at first because there is a LOT of detail. Once you realize that you don't have to know the various maximum Hectoliters / Hectare for each AOC or the specific production numbers, then the level of detail becomes tolerable. Once you break it into manageable bites it is a lot easier to digest.
Finally once you have reviewed it 3-4 times, you start to realize just what it is that matters, and what would be a fair question on a test. Then your 30 pages of notes gets whittled down to a page per region, and you begin to realize that this isn't going to be a hard test. Plus after the 2nd or 3rd review, the terms aren't new and unfamiliar any more, you begin talking like a Frenchman. ( PS - This is another thing the online course is good for. Lisa Aires, the narrator, uses French pronunciation on the various terms and you begin to say them correctly and you don't keep trying to turn them into English ) Believe it or not, once the terms become familiar ( I almost spelled that 'becaume' because it sounded French ) - once the words are familiar the facts then start to stand out and they lock in better.
So ... the test is over, we get results in about 2 weeks. I can decompress and get a few days respite, and probably need to do some chores around the house.
What next ? Too many choices. I wish there was an Italian Wine Scholar type program. ( If you know of one please leave a comment. ).
But now I have to decide .... I need to either research and write a 2500 word paper on advances in winemaking (Part 1 - due in November) for my Unit 1 WSET exam or I can study Italy and the rest of the world in order to sit for the Certified Wine Educator exam in September. I also still need to prepare for Wine Judge Certification - Year 1 test in November. Plus there is the in-person written exam (Part 2) on a currently unknown topic for WSET which will likely require 2-3 weeks of research in October (when they tell us what the general area of the topic will be) if I want to take it in November. I don't know if I can do it all.
But today I passed my test. And tonight we are going to celebrate with pizza and Champagne. BTW, in case nobody ever mentioned it, Champagne goes with just about everything, except for maybe wedding cake, which is kind of ironic when you think about when we normally drink it. I do also need to add the disclaimer here, that since I am a Certified Location Specialist regarding Champagne and Porto, that this is indeed real Champagne from Champagne France (Only from Champagne and nowhere else!) and not just sparkling wine. Although Sparkling wine probably also goes pretty good with pizza, too.
john
Now, Gordana is really smart and it won't surprise me to hear she got 100% on the test, and I am even thinking that i got mid 90s on it.
I have been studying - average about 2-3 hours a day, I think, on this test since early June - so about 2 months' worth of work. 120-150 total hours which makes sense for a 250 page text book. I self-studied but did buy / attend a review class ( with lunch !) from San Francisco Wine School and there I met David Glancy, MS,CWE and Maureen Downey, DWS, CWE. David taught me a trick in that he made up mnemonics for everything, and I started doing it too and it really works, even if the mnemonic is a little nutty. For example, Must John Really Make Such Bad Noodles (M,J,R,M,S,B,N) tells me the the order that wine bottles grow in size from Magnum to Nebuchadnezzar. ( It was on the test today! - A Jeroboam is 4 bottles ).
Want to learn the 10 Beaujolais Cru villages ? (North to South) Saint Julia Childs Makes Fine Coffee Mornings, Regularly Before Breakfast. (St Amour, Julienas, Chenas, Moulon-a-vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Regnie, Cote-de-Brouilly, Brouilly).
Need to learn the major Middle-Loire AOCs ? West to East (more or less) : See A Beautiful Lion Sleeping Quietly Be-Cause she is Very Tired. Savennieres, Anjou, Bonnezeau, Coteaux de Layon, Saumur, Quarts de Chaume, (Chaume), Bourgueil, (St Nicolas de Bourgueil), Chinon, Vouvray, Touraine.
It seems ridiculous, but it really works. At least for me, your mileage may vary.
David's colleague Maureen is just a doll. I think she has been studying for her Master of Wine even before she was old enough to drink legally. She gave us an extra, informal, review session on a Sunday morning. And if nothing else, she convinced me that I would do good on the test and that they weren't going to ask the really hard questions on the test. (Name the 4 French AOCs that require oak aging ). This saved a lot of panic studying. Thanks, Maureen. If you ever google yourself, I hope you find this !!
Not that panicking was out of the question, however. I was tense going into the test. Passing grade is a 75%. There are 100 questions. So it wasn't until I got past question #75 - with only a couple of questions that I wasn't sure of, before I started breathing easier. When i figured out that the questions after #85 weren't getting any harder, then I was practically cheering. I was going to do pretty good.
There were a couple of almost trick questions, but the text book had pointed out that we should not mistake Beaumes-de-Venise ( who makes red wine ) with Muscat Beaumes-de-Venise which makes a really good tasting fortified vin du natural out of the white Muscat grape. That one was on the test.
One question that I did have some trouble with, but corrected, is also a common mistake, and I almost fell for it. It regarded Gevrey-Chambertin Grand Cru AOC. ( you wine geeks already know where I am going with this ). Gevrey-Chambertin is a village in the Cotes de Nuits - Burgundy that makes some of the best Pinot Noirs. It has 9 Grand Cru vineyards in the village. And that is the problem. In Burgundy it is the Vineyard that is the AOC not the Village - at least for the Grand Crus. So Chambertin is a Grand Cru AOC. Gevrey-Chambertin is a village, and Gevrey Chambertin Grand Cru AOC is just a big mistake. And they almost had me, because they through in some name I never heard of in another answer and I went for that at first, until I thought things out. A rookie mistake. A lucky catch.
As I mentioned before, I like the French Wine Scholar program, the text has some errors but in general is very good. The on-line study aid pretty much mirrors the book, and could probably be bypassed, but I bought it in combination with the review session, the exam fees, and a free lunch, so I thought it a good deal. Plus the quizzes for each of the on-line modules are invaluable. We talked about this during the review session and decided that the quizzes on the on-line review are actually harder than the final exam. David mentioned that he did the review quizzes over and over until he got a perfect score on each of them, then he took the exam. I thought that a good idea, so I included it in my study program, and i think it works.
Like most of the tests I have taken for wine certification, this was a fair test. You can do well on it with a reasonable amount of study. It seems over-whelming at first because there is a LOT of detail. Once you realize that you don't have to know the various maximum Hectoliters / Hectare for each AOC or the specific production numbers, then the level of detail becomes tolerable. Once you break it into manageable bites it is a lot easier to digest.
Finally once you have reviewed it 3-4 times, you start to realize just what it is that matters, and what would be a fair question on a test. Then your 30 pages of notes gets whittled down to a page per region, and you begin to realize that this isn't going to be a hard test. Plus after the 2nd or 3rd review, the terms aren't new and unfamiliar any more, you begin talking like a Frenchman. ( PS - This is another thing the online course is good for. Lisa Aires, the narrator, uses French pronunciation on the various terms and you begin to say them correctly and you don't keep trying to turn them into English ) Believe it or not, once the terms become familiar ( I almost spelled that 'becaume' because it sounded French ) - once the words are familiar the facts then start to stand out and they lock in better.
So ... the test is over, we get results in about 2 weeks. I can decompress and get a few days respite, and probably need to do some chores around the house.
What next ? Too many choices. I wish there was an Italian Wine Scholar type program. ( If you know of one please leave a comment. ).
But now I have to decide .... I need to either research and write a 2500 word paper on advances in winemaking (Part 1 - due in November) for my Unit 1 WSET exam or I can study Italy and the rest of the world in order to sit for the Certified Wine Educator exam in September. I also still need to prepare for Wine Judge Certification - Year 1 test in November. Plus there is the in-person written exam (Part 2) on a currently unknown topic for WSET which will likely require 2-3 weeks of research in October (when they tell us what the general area of the topic will be) if I want to take it in November. I don't know if I can do it all.
But today I passed my test. And tonight we are going to celebrate with pizza and Champagne. BTW, in case nobody ever mentioned it, Champagne goes with just about everything, except for maybe wedding cake, which is kind of ironic when you think about when we normally drink it. I do also need to add the disclaimer here, that since I am a Certified Location Specialist regarding Champagne and Porto, that this is indeed real Champagne from Champagne France (Only from Champagne and nowhere else!) and not just sparkling wine. Although Sparkling wine probably also goes pretty good with pizza, too.
john
Monday, July 25, 2011
Smelling nasty Wines
As part of our WJCP training, and also a requirement for Certified Wine Educator, the student is expected to be able to recognize common wine faults. So I have been smelling stinky wines for the last week. And will do so again this week. And possibly again next month. (Despite popular misconception, the life of a wine student is not just all partying, .... though it isn't bad either)
WJCP advised us, that identifying wine faults is an area where candidates lose points on their first year exam and they advised us to purchase fault kits from either Vinquiry or from Le Nez du Vin. When we are tested in December, they will use the Vinquiry fault set to make up the test wines. So I bought a set.
This is not an inexpensive exercise, the kits retail for about $100 and students on the east coast found that special shipping restrictions would add another (unexpected!) $20-$40 to their costs.
You get 10 vials of chemicals, enough to add each vial to 50 ML (2 ounces or so) of wine. Or, you can use 1/2 vial with 25 ML of and run 2 sets of tests which is what I did, once with a neutral white wine (Franzia Chardonnay) and once with a neutral red (Franzia Merlot). I did these several days apart.
I filled my 11 glasses with 25 ML of wine, one of them was my standard so I could always refer back to the base wine and also use it to help clear out my nose after smelling the "off" wines. (Note: smelling your skin or armpit can also reset your sense of smell as long as you didn't just come from working out at the gym.) Then I added 1/2 vial of the defect, I put the remaining fault vial back in its box and back into the refrigerator for storage. I capped the wine glasses with a little plastic lid, left them on the kitchen counter and then smelled them several times over the next 3 days. A couple of the wines faded in smell over the 3 days but were still recognizable. Most of the wines held their aromas. Some stayed god awful stinky, smelled up the kitchen and tested the limits of my wife's love for me.
Here is what Vinquiry says about the Defects.
Kit Contains 10 Wine Defects for Aroma Evaluation Only:
(Do NOT drink these wines, they are harmful if swallowed.)
DEFECT AROMA DESCRIPTORS
1) Cork Taint Musty, Moldy, Pond Water, Basement, Dank Cellar, Wet Paper, Wet Cardboardy
2) Brettanomyces 1 Barnyard, Horse, Wet Dog, Band-Aid, Leather, Smoky, Tar
3) Oxidation Bruised Apples, Sherry, Nutty
4) VA – Acetic Acid Vinegar, Pungent
5) VA – Ethyl Acetate Fingernail Polish Remover
6) Lactic Taint (Buttery) Butter, Buttered Popcorn
7) Methoxypyrazine Green Bell Pepper, Fresh Leaves, Vegetative
8) Brettanomyces 2 Sweaty Saddle, Cheese, Rancid
9) Microbial Muddy, Earthy, Musty, Beets, Turnip
10) Hydrogen Sulfide Rotten Eggs
Here are my experiences: first with the Chardonnay and then with the Merlot
1 TCA : a little more "moldy old book" smell with white. Still there but a little better integrated with red.
2 Brett1 : still horse sweat, but *seems* to integrate better on the red wine.
3 Oxydative / Aldehyde: slightly less sherry like, moves a little towards overripe apple in the red
4 Acetic: NC - no change: vinegar in both base wines.
5 Ethyl Acetate: moved from nail polish remover to airplane glue (same but different, slightly more pungent)
6 Lactic / Butter: NC - no change: smells like movie popcorn butter.
7 Methoxy Pyrazine: I still don't get bell pepper but have decided that "dead leaves" is what I do get
8 Brett2: This one still seems like rancid cottage cheese but moves closer to #9
9 Microbial : still smells like beets - white and red.
10 Sulfur: still nasty, nasty, nasty. This one does fade over time of 2-3 days.
So. In my opinion, while I saw small changes in some of the wines in moving from white base wine to the red base wine, I don't believe it really matters whether you use red or white wine - the fault aromas are pretty consistent.
I also think that any amount of Brett1, Lactic or Sulfur is easy to get. Oxydative and Ethyl Acetate stand out but fade over time ( 2-3 days ). I also expect to have some problems with the methoxy pyrazine on the test. I can recognize it as different from the standard base wine, but it doesn't come across as a distinctive smell for me.
I also had a "brilliant" idea. After creating my 2nd set of glasses, I re-filled my fault vials with the associated faulted red wine from my glasses, capped them, and put them back in the refrigerator. Hopefully killing 2 birds with one stone ... getting every last drop of fault out of the vial, and giving me something to smell again in 1-2 months. ( Oh boy, really looking forwards to horse sweat and rotten eggs in September ).Vinquiry suggests that if you keep the vials cool and they will store for up to 6 months. I am not sure if this works once they are mixed with wine, but we will find out.
You could make up some of these smells at home. Vinegar for Acetic, Finger Nail Polish Remover for Ethyl Acetate, A burnt match for sulfur dioxide. Some classic Rhone wines will definitely have Brett aromas. And the statistic is that from 3-7% of wines will have cork taint, so you may have come across it before but not known it.
A great resource for training yourself on various sensory aspects of wines is "The University Wine Course" by Marian Baldy. In my opinion this is THE classic book for learning how to taste wine. It also has an extensive section on how to prepare wine faults, components, and just standards for common smells. You can often find it on Amazon or ABE Books at a cheap price. Currently used but good condition for less than $10.
john
WJCP advised us, that identifying wine faults is an area where candidates lose points on their first year exam and they advised us to purchase fault kits from either Vinquiry or from Le Nez du Vin. When we are tested in December, they will use the Vinquiry fault set to make up the test wines. So I bought a set.
This is not an inexpensive exercise, the kits retail for about $100 and students on the east coast found that special shipping restrictions would add another (unexpected!) $20-$40 to their costs.
You get 10 vials of chemicals, enough to add each vial to 50 ML (2 ounces or so) of wine. Or, you can use 1/2 vial with 25 ML of and run 2 sets of tests which is what I did, once with a neutral white wine (Franzia Chardonnay) and once with a neutral red (Franzia Merlot). I did these several days apart.
I filled my 11 glasses with 25 ML of wine, one of them was my standard so I could always refer back to the base wine and also use it to help clear out my nose after smelling the "off" wines. (Note: smelling your skin or armpit can also reset your sense of smell as long as you didn't just come from working out at the gym.) Then I added 1/2 vial of the defect, I put the remaining fault vial back in its box and back into the refrigerator for storage. I capped the wine glasses with a little plastic lid, left them on the kitchen counter and then smelled them several times over the next 3 days. A couple of the wines faded in smell over the 3 days but were still recognizable. Most of the wines held their aromas. Some stayed god awful stinky, smelled up the kitchen and tested the limits of my wife's love for me.
Here is what Vinquiry says about the Defects.
Kit Contains 10 Wine Defects for Aroma Evaluation Only:
(Do NOT drink these wines, they are harmful if swallowed.)
DEFECT AROMA DESCRIPTORS
1) Cork Taint Musty, Moldy, Pond Water, Basement, Dank Cellar, Wet Paper, Wet Cardboardy
2) Brettanomyces 1 Barnyard, Horse, Wet Dog, Band-Aid, Leather, Smoky, Tar
3) Oxidation Bruised Apples, Sherry, Nutty
4) VA – Acetic Acid Vinegar, Pungent
5) VA – Ethyl Acetate Fingernail Polish Remover
6) Lactic Taint (Buttery) Butter, Buttered Popcorn
7) Methoxypyrazine Green Bell Pepper, Fresh Leaves, Vegetative
8) Brettanomyces 2 Sweaty Saddle, Cheese, Rancid
9) Microbial Muddy, Earthy, Musty, Beets, Turnip
10) Hydrogen Sulfide Rotten Eggs
Here are my experiences: first with the Chardonnay and then with the Merlot
1 TCA : a little more "moldy old book" smell with white. Still there but a little better integrated with red.
2 Brett1 : still horse sweat, but *seems* to integrate better on the red wine.
3 Oxydative / Aldehyde: slightly less sherry like, moves a little towards overripe apple in the red
4 Acetic: NC - no change: vinegar in both base wines.
5 Ethyl Acetate: moved from nail polish remover to airplane glue (same but different, slightly more pungent)
6 Lactic / Butter: NC - no change: smells like movie popcorn butter.
7 Methoxy Pyrazine: I still don't get bell pepper but have decided that "dead leaves" is what I do get
8 Brett2: This one still seems like rancid cottage cheese but moves closer to #9
9 Microbial : still smells like beets - white and red.
10 Sulfur: still nasty, nasty, nasty. This one does fade over time of 2-3 days.
So. In my opinion, while I saw small changes in some of the wines in moving from white base wine to the red base wine, I don't believe it really matters whether you use red or white wine - the fault aromas are pretty consistent.
I also think that any amount of Brett1, Lactic or Sulfur is easy to get. Oxydative and Ethyl Acetate stand out but fade over time ( 2-3 days ). I also expect to have some problems with the methoxy pyrazine on the test. I can recognize it as different from the standard base wine, but it doesn't come across as a distinctive smell for me.
I also had a "brilliant" idea. After creating my 2nd set of glasses, I re-filled my fault vials with the associated faulted red wine from my glasses, capped them, and put them back in the refrigerator. Hopefully killing 2 birds with one stone ... getting every last drop of fault out of the vial, and giving me something to smell again in 1-2 months. ( Oh boy, really looking forwards to horse sweat and rotten eggs in September ).Vinquiry suggests that if you keep the vials cool and they will store for up to 6 months. I am not sure if this works once they are mixed with wine, but we will find out.
You could make up some of these smells at home. Vinegar for Acetic, Finger Nail Polish Remover for Ethyl Acetate, A burnt match for sulfur dioxide. Some classic Rhone wines will definitely have Brett aromas. And the statistic is that from 3-7% of wines will have cork taint, so you may have come across it before but not known it.
A great resource for training yourself on various sensory aspects of wines is "The University Wine Course" by Marian Baldy. In my opinion this is THE classic book for learning how to taste wine. It also has an extensive section on how to prepare wine faults, components, and just standards for common smells. You can often find it on Amazon or ABE Books at a cheap price. Currently used but good condition for less than $10.
john
Friday, July 22, 2011
Home Winemakers Awards
Last night was the awards ceremony for those California Home Winemakers who won ribbons at the state fair wine judging competition. Well, actually not a lot of ceremony, the winners were asked to collect their ribbons ad-hoc during the event and the announcements and presentations were restricted to Best of Class and Best of Show winners.
At the same time about 20 "best of" and "double gold" winners were asked to pour their wines so that other winemakers and invitees could taste the wines.
I have never had so many good wines in one place at one time. I am not exaggerating. I am so impressed with the quality of wines that were poured.
Because I was a volunteer at the judging event, I was also invited to attend the awards ceremony, although it may have been open to the public. I am told that 300 people had RSVP'd for the event and by quick count I think there were over 150 there at any one time. i am told it was the largest crowd that they had ever had for this event.
Although i was an invitee and could bring a guest, I was also asked if I could volunteer and my wife Susan and I were happy to have the opportunity. These events are always fun, and in general, you tend to meet the nicest people who are also volunteers and give of their time and passion to make things like this happen.
Speaking of passion, I can't say enough for the home winemakers themselves who were there last night. Not only did they pay to enter their wines into the competition, but some of them traveled long distances to be at the awards ceremony and they also brought their prize winning wines to pour for the rest of us. In some cases there may not have been that much wine made in the first place. And here they were sharing it with the crowd.
So back to tasting ... Susan and I tended to limit our tasting to "Best of"s and Double Golds and there were a fair share of them there. Probably about 50 wines total. Since I still had a 1 hr drive to get home i went light on my tasting, whereas Susan was able to sample a lot more.
One of our favorites was a Blueberry / Merlot fruit wine. 50% blueberries, 50% merlot grapes, fermented together. The same producer also had 5 other double golds for other fruit wines including a "tomatillo sherry". (I kid you not. A fortified wine made from little green looking tomatoes).
One of the best of the night, in my opinion was an Italian blend called "Italian Stallion" made by Chris Hamm.
It was perfectly balanced, the tannins were soft, it had lots of character. Included LaGrein, Niellucio (Sangiovese), and some other grape that i forget. A perfect wine.
After the ceremony was over, Susan and I went over to the Savemart tent because they were giving tastings of the commercial winery winners. 3 free tastings per person, so Susan and I shared and got to taste 6 wines. Guenoc had a good Sauvignon blanc from, I think, Lake County that had some New Zealand characteristics (grapefruit, aromatic, clean). We tasted 5 other Gold and Best of medal winners from the commercial wineries. They were good.
But when all was said and done, I think the Home Winemakers still won the night. Congratulations to the men and women who made such great wines and thanks for sharing them.
The BUMMER of the whole evening: after tasting a really perfect home wine maker award winning wine, you realize that you can't buy it, and you will probably never see it again. The only hope if to maybe taste a new vintage next year.
Here is the list of home wine maker winners:
john
At the same time about 20 "best of" and "double gold" winners were asked to pour their wines so that other winemakers and invitees could taste the wines.
I have never had so many good wines in one place at one time. I am not exaggerating. I am so impressed with the quality of wines that were poured.
Because I was a volunteer at the judging event, I was also invited to attend the awards ceremony, although it may have been open to the public. I am told that 300 people had RSVP'd for the event and by quick count I think there were over 150 there at any one time. i am told it was the largest crowd that they had ever had for this event.
Although i was an invitee and could bring a guest, I was also asked if I could volunteer and my wife Susan and I were happy to have the opportunity. These events are always fun, and in general, you tend to meet the nicest people who are also volunteers and give of their time and passion to make things like this happen.
Speaking of passion, I can't say enough for the home winemakers themselves who were there last night. Not only did they pay to enter their wines into the competition, but some of them traveled long distances to be at the awards ceremony and they also brought their prize winning wines to pour for the rest of us. In some cases there may not have been that much wine made in the first place. And here they were sharing it with the crowd.
So back to tasting ... Susan and I tended to limit our tasting to "Best of"s and Double Golds and there were a fair share of them there. Probably about 50 wines total. Since I still had a 1 hr drive to get home i went light on my tasting, whereas Susan was able to sample a lot more.
One of our favorites was a Blueberry / Merlot fruit wine. 50% blueberries, 50% merlot grapes, fermented together. The same producer also had 5 other double golds for other fruit wines including a "tomatillo sherry". (I kid you not. A fortified wine made from little green looking tomatoes).
One of the best of the night, in my opinion was an Italian blend called "Italian Stallion" made by Chris Hamm.
It was perfectly balanced, the tannins were soft, it had lots of character. Included LaGrein, Niellucio (Sangiovese), and some other grape that i forget. A perfect wine.
After the ceremony was over, Susan and I went over to the Savemart tent because they were giving tastings of the commercial winery winners. 3 free tastings per person, so Susan and I shared and got to taste 6 wines. Guenoc had a good Sauvignon blanc from, I think, Lake County that had some New Zealand characteristics (grapefruit, aromatic, clean). We tasted 5 other Gold and Best of medal winners from the commercial wineries. They were good.
But when all was said and done, I think the Home Winemakers still won the night. Congratulations to the men and women who made such great wines and thanks for sharing them.
The BUMMER of the whole evening: after tasting a really perfect home wine maker award winning wine, you realize that you can't buy it, and you will probably never see it again. The only hope if to maybe taste a new vintage next year.
Here is the list of home wine maker winners:
john
Various updates
I haven't started anything new in last couple of months, so I want to give some updates on some of the various programs I am in.
French Wine Scholar: I have read all, and high-lighted most, of the manual. It is daunting, there is a lot of information, but when you break it down into sections, each section doesn't seem that bad. Classic divide and conquer. I have also finished the online study modules. I think this is worth the cost. The modules don't differe a lot from the manual, but they do allow a different way of integrating the information. The review quizzes are good, and I hope the final test is at about the same level. If so it will be a fair test. I have not watched very many of the webinars that are offered with the study modules. They each take an hour or so, and I have just not found the time to watch them. They are probably VERY interesting. My access to this website is good for about 9 more months, and so perhaps I can watch them after I take the exam.
I have an in-person "review day" with the local FWS provider tomorrow. It was part of the package that I selected. ( book, online modules, review day, test ). I will let you know how that turns out when I return tomorrow evening.
WJCP The AWS Wine Judging Certification Program is still moving along. So far there have been several required readings, some of them older books, but we just got a new requirement to read "Wine Faults: Causes , Effects, Cures" by John Hudelson. Many of us also bought the Vinquiry fault kit for $100 ( ouch !!) with the appropriate chemicals to create 50ml of faulted wine. Since this is one of the key parts of the WJCP 1st year test, and also part of the Certified Wine Educator test, it seemed like a good thing to get. I got my kit last week and I will spend this afternoon preparing and smelling the wines to learn those characteristics. We have been told that the base wine for these faults will be Franzia Chardonnay - so i have 5 liter box in my fridge and have been tasting it to learn the base wine.
We still have a monthly phone conference to compare tasting notes on various wines and trying to standardize our impressions. Again, this is test prep, where we will be looking to correlate our impressions with 3 certified judges. (Sort of like how it takes 3 bishops to consecrate a new one).
WSET I still have not heard back on my Unit 6 test. These things usually take 7-10 weeks and it has only been 6 weeks so far, so I am not surprised. Since I think I failed, no big hurry in finding out. Just need to work on writing exercises and find out the next time I can take it.
On the other hand, I am moving forward on Unit 1 requirements. I have started research on the 2500 word course work assignment due this November. It is a paper on advances in viticulture and winemaking over the last 50 years. I have one strong topic and one weaker one and am pulling together the research for both of them to see if I have enough for a good paper. Part of the grade is simply on structure of writing a good paper with distinct sections and annotations as well as quality of research. Need to decide in early September and register to submit the paper. Also will attempt the in-person written paper exam also in November that completes the 2nd Unit 1 requirement. We won't know the topic for this until 1 month before the exam itself. We then have 1 month to study and the exam is without notes.
CWE "Certified Wine Educator". This exam is being given locally ( in Napa ) in September. I may not be ready to take it yet, but because the requirements are relatively vague ( read a lot of books, drink a lot of wine ) I am tempted to try it never-the-less. This was one of the reasons for attempting French Wine Scholar - I have now done extensive study on 1 major producer. I think I need to do more on Italy and Spain and then might have a good chance to pass the written test. There are several parts to this exam. As well as the written test, there is the wine faults test ( similar to WJCP ). There is the wine components test ( ditto WJCP ). There is a wine description test ( similar to WSET tasting notes ). And there is the written test which builds on the CSW exam which I have already passed. When I add in my "Location Specialist" exam for Champagne and the Douro, and my WSET Unit 6 studies for Fortified Wines, I think I have a chance. Even if I fail I will have a better idea of what the requirements are and level of study. Plus I may eliminate a couple of the units even if I fail the written exam. ( i.e. I can still pass the components and wine descriptions ).
In general
I study ~ 2 hours a day for at least 4 days a week. I do feel a little fractured in that I am focusing on different exams, but at the same time, there is some synergy between all the courses, and study for one can only help the others. For example about 17% of the CWE questions involve France - so my FWS studies get me part way to a pass on that exam. Another 20-25% of the questions are on Viticulture, Enology which I am comfortable with and also researching some for Unit 1 exam. Another 5-7% is on Sensory analysis which fits in with WJCP studies. So there are some good fits. I also read that it takes on average 2 tries to get the CWE certification, so I won't feel bad to fail parts of the exam the first time.
We'll see.
john
French Wine Scholar: I have read all, and high-lighted most, of the manual. It is daunting, there is a lot of information, but when you break it down into sections, each section doesn't seem that bad. Classic divide and conquer. I have also finished the online study modules. I think this is worth the cost. The modules don't differe a lot from the manual, but they do allow a different way of integrating the information. The review quizzes are good, and I hope the final test is at about the same level. If so it will be a fair test. I have not watched very many of the webinars that are offered with the study modules. They each take an hour or so, and I have just not found the time to watch them. They are probably VERY interesting. My access to this website is good for about 9 more months, and so perhaps I can watch them after I take the exam.
I have an in-person "review day" with the local FWS provider tomorrow. It was part of the package that I selected. ( book, online modules, review day, test ). I will let you know how that turns out when I return tomorrow evening.
WJCP The AWS Wine Judging Certification Program is still moving along. So far there have been several required readings, some of them older books, but we just got a new requirement to read "Wine Faults: Causes , Effects, Cures" by John Hudelson. Many of us also bought the Vinquiry fault kit for $100 ( ouch !!) with the appropriate chemicals to create 50ml of faulted wine. Since this is one of the key parts of the WJCP 1st year test, and also part of the Certified Wine Educator test, it seemed like a good thing to get. I got my kit last week and I will spend this afternoon preparing and smelling the wines to learn those characteristics. We have been told that the base wine for these faults will be Franzia Chardonnay - so i have 5 liter box in my fridge and have been tasting it to learn the base wine.
We still have a monthly phone conference to compare tasting notes on various wines and trying to standardize our impressions. Again, this is test prep, where we will be looking to correlate our impressions with 3 certified judges. (Sort of like how it takes 3 bishops to consecrate a new one).
WSET I still have not heard back on my Unit 6 test. These things usually take 7-10 weeks and it has only been 6 weeks so far, so I am not surprised. Since I think I failed, no big hurry in finding out. Just need to work on writing exercises and find out the next time I can take it.
On the other hand, I am moving forward on Unit 1 requirements. I have started research on the 2500 word course work assignment due this November. It is a paper on advances in viticulture and winemaking over the last 50 years. I have one strong topic and one weaker one and am pulling together the research for both of them to see if I have enough for a good paper. Part of the grade is simply on structure of writing a good paper with distinct sections and annotations as well as quality of research. Need to decide in early September and register to submit the paper. Also will attempt the in-person written paper exam also in November that completes the 2nd Unit 1 requirement. We won't know the topic for this until 1 month before the exam itself. We then have 1 month to study and the exam is without notes.
CWE "Certified Wine Educator". This exam is being given locally ( in Napa ) in September. I may not be ready to take it yet, but because the requirements are relatively vague ( read a lot of books, drink a lot of wine ) I am tempted to try it never-the-less. This was one of the reasons for attempting French Wine Scholar - I have now done extensive study on 1 major producer. I think I need to do more on Italy and Spain and then might have a good chance to pass the written test. There are several parts to this exam. As well as the written test, there is the wine faults test ( similar to WJCP ). There is the wine components test ( ditto WJCP ). There is a wine description test ( similar to WSET tasting notes ). And there is the written test which builds on the CSW exam which I have already passed. When I add in my "Location Specialist" exam for Champagne and the Douro, and my WSET Unit 6 studies for Fortified Wines, I think I have a chance. Even if I fail I will have a better idea of what the requirements are and level of study. Plus I may eliminate a couple of the units even if I fail the written exam. ( i.e. I can still pass the components and wine descriptions ).
In general
I study ~ 2 hours a day for at least 4 days a week. I do feel a little fractured in that I am focusing on different exams, but at the same time, there is some synergy between all the courses, and study for one can only help the others. For example about 17% of the CWE questions involve France - so my FWS studies get me part way to a pass on that exam. Another 20-25% of the questions are on Viticulture, Enology which I am comfortable with and also researching some for Unit 1 exam. Another 5-7% is on Sensory analysis which fits in with WJCP studies. So there are some good fits. I also read that it takes on average 2 tries to get the CWE certification, so I won't feel bad to fail parts of the exam the first time.
We'll see.
john
Saturday, July 2, 2011
French Wine Scholar
For the last several weeks I have been studying for French Wine Scholar Certification. I posted earlier when I had first started the course, and now that I am about 1/2 way through, I can add to my earlier comments.
There are several ways you can attempt this certification. You can buy the manual and self-study and take the test online. This is how I started it. (Cost about $250). You also have the option to purchase access to the on-line academy with its maps, on-line modules and practice quizzes. (Cost about $475 with manual and test fees). This is what i am currently doing and I recommend it - it is well worth the extra money. Finally you can take a formal course with weekly classes that cover all the material and have you taste the wines of the areas you are studying. Cost about $950. I have tasted the various wines before and am spending several thousands of $$ already on my wine education, ( I am retired and living off my savings ) so I try to select the least expensive format that will still prepare me to pass the test. I actually was able to work with the San Francisco Wine School - a French Wine Scholar provider in the SF bay Area, to combine the self study course with a 1 day in-person review course, the on-line study modules and the in-person test. I appreciate their flexibility in setting this up.
First of all, I like this course. Every interaction with the text book, the online guides, the maps, the quizes, and especially my interactions with Julien and Celine Camus, the founders of the organization and with Lisa Airey, CWE the director of Education, has been at the highest level of expectation. This is a well designed and well run program.
As mentioned before the study guide is about 250 pages with considerable detail, and can seem overwhelming at first ( and even later when you study Burgundy's appellations in detail ), but if the practice quizzes are any guide to the final exam, then the level of comprehension expected, while detailed and holistic, is nevertheless fair.
The practice quizzes are, like everything else, done well and with enough diversity to keep them interesting and also provide additional learning. Some questions are map questions, and you are expected to click on the appropriate area of a map to identify particular regions or appellations. In the case of Burgundy you are expected to order the major communes from Northern-most to Southern-most according to their geography. And, as you are advised in the introduction to the course, you should know the details of those topics that are exceptional - such as the only 100% Aligote grape appellation in the Cotes Chalonnaise (Bouzeron).
And you are expected to know the difference between Givry and Gevrey (I missed that one : spelling counts!). Note: Givry is a village in Cote Challonaise and Gevrey is a village in the Cotes de Nuits with 9 grand cru vineyards in it. For franco-philic-oenophiles (sounds nasty) who have probably not only have memorized the 33 Grand Cru climats in Burgundy but also the 600+ Premier Crus, I am sure i sound ignorant and a wine newbie ( nolo-contendere, your honor ), but when you are learning all these new sounding names, it is easy enough to lose a few vowels in your place names. The French do it all the time.
Anyhow, enough whining. I also love the maps that are provided with this course. (I am a map person) they are very detailed and best of all they have the various appellations color coded. When you see the Grand Cru of the Cotes d'Or colored in red on a map, and especially for example the Corton Hill, you realize that although there are several Grand Cru appellations, they are literally located on a single hill. The area is actually quite small. You might not realize that ( I didn't ) without a good map and the hill high-lighted.
There are 10 modules in the course. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the layout is pretty standard, so you know what to expect as each module proceeds. Usually there are 2 parts to each module, each about 1 hour long. I think they are broken up mostly from a study aspect - that you need a break after an hour of studying. The download speed and on-line performance of the course is very good. I have had no complaints using only basic DSL.
I have found that I can complete each module in about 1-2 days. Usually i take notes on each section so the 1 hour session lasts a little longer. The on-line material is just about exactly the same as what is in the book. I take the notes just because I find that it helps my retention, despite the fact that I can read it in the book as well.
So each module consists of: 1-2 study units, maps, a quiz, and generally 1 or more 1 hr videos put together by an expert or inhabitant of the region explaining more about the area and its winemaking processes. These videos provide local color and also since they generally are native speakers, provide the listener with some more practice learning how to pronounce the names of French terms. For example, it took me several trys to understand that "el-zaz" was in fact Alsace because sometimes even the final 'z' was dropped, and what I was hearing was "elza". Now at least i understand that term. the people who present these videos are generally teachers as well, so the information content in them is quite good.
If one were to listen to all the content, study the maps and take the test, each of the modules might take around 3-4 hours to study. This is in addition to reading the book.
As I mentioned, from a test content, the book and the on-line pretty much mirror each other. The book however has additional appendix and side bar material that is not in the on-line course, and so far I have not found any of this material to be on the quizzes, so I assume it it not on the final test as well.
So this is where I am today, July 2nd. I started studying just after my June 6th WSET - Unit 6 test, I have read the book through once, I have 5 of the 10 modules complete, (Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Champagne) I will have a review course on July 23rd with SF Wine School, and I take the test on August 13th. The final exam is 100 questions of various formats, and passing grade is 75%.
I still have a lot of work to do.
john
There are several ways you can attempt this certification. You can buy the manual and self-study and take the test online. This is how I started it. (Cost about $250). You also have the option to purchase access to the on-line academy with its maps, on-line modules and practice quizzes. (Cost about $475 with manual and test fees). This is what i am currently doing and I recommend it - it is well worth the extra money. Finally you can take a formal course with weekly classes that cover all the material and have you taste the wines of the areas you are studying. Cost about $950. I have tasted the various wines before and am spending several thousands of $$ already on my wine education, ( I am retired and living off my savings ) so I try to select the least expensive format that will still prepare me to pass the test. I actually was able to work with the San Francisco Wine School - a French Wine Scholar provider in the SF bay Area, to combine the self study course with a 1 day in-person review course, the on-line study modules and the in-person test. I appreciate their flexibility in setting this up.
First of all, I like this course. Every interaction with the text book, the online guides, the maps, the quizes, and especially my interactions with Julien and Celine Camus, the founders of the organization and with Lisa Airey, CWE the director of Education, has been at the highest level of expectation. This is a well designed and well run program.
As mentioned before the study guide is about 250 pages with considerable detail, and can seem overwhelming at first ( and even later when you study Burgundy's appellations in detail ), but if the practice quizzes are any guide to the final exam, then the level of comprehension expected, while detailed and holistic, is nevertheless fair.
The practice quizzes are, like everything else, done well and with enough diversity to keep them interesting and also provide additional learning. Some questions are map questions, and you are expected to click on the appropriate area of a map to identify particular regions or appellations. In the case of Burgundy you are expected to order the major communes from Northern-most to Southern-most according to their geography. And, as you are advised in the introduction to the course, you should know the details of those topics that are exceptional - such as the only 100% Aligote grape appellation in the Cotes Chalonnaise (Bouzeron).
And you are expected to know the difference between Givry and Gevrey (I missed that one : spelling counts!). Note: Givry is a village in Cote Challonaise and Gevrey is a village in the Cotes de Nuits with 9 grand cru vineyards in it. For franco-philic-oenophiles (sounds nasty) who have probably not only have memorized the 33 Grand Cru climats in Burgundy but also the 600+ Premier Crus, I am sure i sound ignorant and a wine newbie ( nolo-contendere, your honor ), but when you are learning all these new sounding names, it is easy enough to lose a few vowels in your place names. The French do it all the time.
Anyhow, enough whining. I also love the maps that are provided with this course. (I am a map person) they are very detailed and best of all they have the various appellations color coded. When you see the Grand Cru of the Cotes d'Or colored in red on a map, and especially for example the Corton Hill, you realize that although there are several Grand Cru appellations, they are literally located on a single hill. The area is actually quite small. You might not realize that ( I didn't ) without a good map and the hill high-lighted.
There are 10 modules in the course. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the layout is pretty standard, so you know what to expect as each module proceeds. Usually there are 2 parts to each module, each about 1 hour long. I think they are broken up mostly from a study aspect - that you need a break after an hour of studying. The download speed and on-line performance of the course is very good. I have had no complaints using only basic DSL.
I have found that I can complete each module in about 1-2 days. Usually i take notes on each section so the 1 hour session lasts a little longer. The on-line material is just about exactly the same as what is in the book. I take the notes just because I find that it helps my retention, despite the fact that I can read it in the book as well.
So each module consists of: 1-2 study units, maps, a quiz, and generally 1 or more 1 hr videos put together by an expert or inhabitant of the region explaining more about the area and its winemaking processes. These videos provide local color and also since they generally are native speakers, provide the listener with some more practice learning how to pronounce the names of French terms. For example, it took me several trys to understand that "el-zaz" was in fact Alsace because sometimes even the final 'z' was dropped, and what I was hearing was "elza". Now at least i understand that term. the people who present these videos are generally teachers as well, so the information content in them is quite good.
If one were to listen to all the content, study the maps and take the test, each of the modules might take around 3-4 hours to study. This is in addition to reading the book.
As I mentioned, from a test content, the book and the on-line pretty much mirror each other. The book however has additional appendix and side bar material that is not in the on-line course, and so far I have not found any of this material to be on the quizzes, so I assume it it not on the final test as well.
So this is where I am today, July 2nd. I started studying just after my June 6th WSET - Unit 6 test, I have read the book through once, I have 5 of the 10 modules complete, (Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Champagne) I will have a review course on July 23rd with SF Wine School, and I take the test on August 13th. The final exam is 100 questions of various formats, and passing grade is 75%.
I still have a lot of work to do.
john
Friday, June 24, 2011
Some interesting wines from Cal State Fair
I mentioned in an earlier post that I had volunteered at the California State Fair Home Winemakers Competition.
There were a lot of interesting wines entered in the competition. Since I am also a (1st year beginner) student of the AWS Wine Judge Certification Program, I wanted to post some of the wines we saw during the competition to introduce to my fellow students some of the wines they may encounter.
Here is only a partial list of the many entries: the Year, the Grape/Fruit, the Award, and the Score
2010 Pineapple Gold 94
2010 White Peach Gold 94
2010 Purple Tomatill Sherry Gold 94
2010 Cherry Gold 94
2010 Pineapple Silver 92
2010 Purple Tomatillo Silver 90
2010 Navel Orange Silver 90
2009 Red Heirloom Tomato Silver 89
2010 CabSauv, Berries Silver 89
2009 Yellow Heirloom Tomato Bronze 87
2010 Green Bell Pepper Bronze 87
2009 Lemon Gold 94
2010 Boysenberry Silver 89
2010 Ruby Red Grapefruit Bronze 85
2010 Petit Verdot Double Gold 99 Best of Show Red. Best of California
2010 LaFirein, Neiluccio, Primitivo Double Gold 98 Best of California,
(Neiluccio is a known variety, Primitivo is the same as Zinfandel, we think LaFirein may be Lagrein)
2010 Apple Double Gold 99
2008 Black Raspberry, Passion Fruit Double Gold 98 Best of Show Sweet,
2010 Red Raspberry Gold 94
2008 Golden Raspberry Gold 94
2010 Pinot Gris, Mango Gold 94
2010 Elephant Heart Plum Silver 93
2010 Watermelon Silver 93
2010 Strawberry Silver 91
2010 Peach Silver 89
2010 Blueberry Honorable Mention 81
2009 Honey Mead Honorable Mention 81
2010 Apple Port Double Gold 98
Plus some more common but perhaps less than broadly known ......
2010 Blackberry Port Silver 91
2009 Touriga Nacional Silver 90
2010 Apple Juice Fortified with Apple Brandy Silver 89
2010 Unfortified Pinot Noir & Brandy Bronze 86
2009 Aglianico Silver 90
2006 Corvina Silver 90
2007 Muscat Canelli Silver 90
2009 Marionberry Silver 90
2010 Viognier Silver 90
2010 Rousanne Silver 89
2010 Olallieberry Silver 88
2009 Tannat Gold 94
2008 Marzemeino Silver 91
2010 Piquepoul Blanc Silver 89
2010 Arneis Silver 90
I supported the panel of Judges that had the Arneis. One member knew that it was from Piedmont. For the rest of us it was a mostly unknown. We had one of the Chief judges come over to give us a short ampelography on the grape and offer his opinion on the quality and tipicity of the wine. There was a general impression that it was slightly flawed. (Maybe SO2). But i thought it a good example of what a judge can run into and the difficulty required to give it a fair grade when the 'ideal' example was an unknown.
john
There were a lot of interesting wines entered in the competition. Since I am also a (1st year beginner) student of the AWS Wine Judge Certification Program, I wanted to post some of the wines we saw during the competition to introduce to my fellow students some of the wines they may encounter.
Here is only a partial list of the many entries: the Year, the Grape/Fruit, the Award, and the Score
2010 Pineapple Gold 94
2010 White Peach Gold 94
2010 Purple Tomatill Sherry Gold 94
2010 Cherry Gold 94
2010 Pineapple Silver 92
2010 Purple Tomatillo Silver 90
2010 Navel Orange Silver 90
2009 Red Heirloom Tomato Silver 89
2010 CabSauv, Berries Silver 89
2009 Yellow Heirloom Tomato Bronze 87
2010 Green Bell Pepper Bronze 87
2009 Lemon Gold 94
2010 Boysenberry Silver 89
2010 Ruby Red Grapefruit Bronze 85
2010 Petit Verdot Double Gold 99 Best of Show Red. Best of California
2010 LaFirein, Neiluccio, Primitivo Double Gold 98 Best of California,
(Neiluccio is a known variety, Primitivo is the same as Zinfandel, we think LaFirein may be Lagrein)
2010 Apple Double Gold 99
2008 Black Raspberry, Passion Fruit Double Gold 98 Best of Show Sweet,
2010 Red Raspberry Gold 94
2008 Golden Raspberry Gold 94
2010 Pinot Gris, Mango Gold 94
2010 Elephant Heart Plum Silver 93
2010 Watermelon Silver 93
2010 Strawberry Silver 91
2010 Peach Silver 89
2010 Blueberry Honorable Mention 81
2009 Honey Mead Honorable Mention 81
2010 Apple Port Double Gold 98
Plus some more common but perhaps less than broadly known ......
2010 Blackberry Port Silver 91
2009 Touriga Nacional Silver 90
2010 Apple Juice Fortified with Apple Brandy Silver 89
2010 Unfortified Pinot Noir & Brandy Bronze 86
2009 Aglianico Silver 90
2006 Corvina Silver 90
2007 Muscat Canelli Silver 90
2009 Marionberry Silver 90
2010 Viognier Silver 90
2010 Rousanne Silver 89
2010 Olallieberry Silver 88
2009 Tannat Gold 94
2008 Marzemeino Silver 91
2010 Piquepoul Blanc Silver 89
2010 Arneis Silver 90
I supported the panel of Judges that had the Arneis. One member knew that it was from Piedmont. For the rest of us it was a mostly unknown. We had one of the Chief judges come over to give us a short ampelography on the grape and offer his opinion on the quality and tipicity of the wine. There was a general impression that it was slightly flawed. (Maybe SO2). But i thought it a good example of what a judge can run into and the difficulty required to give it a fair grade when the 'ideal' example was an unknown.
john
Friday, June 17, 2011
A good week for free Wine !
My wine cellar ( ok, my kitchen closet ) was bare. I had been drinking fortified wines for the last couple of months and I had drunk all of them in preparation for my WSET -Unit 6 exam. I was out of wine.
Then this last week happened. Sunday, I volunteered for the California Home Winemakers Competition and in appreciation I got 6 unopened wines ( from the 2nd / backup bottles of each entry ), 6 wines that had been opened and poured, and for volunteering on Sunday as well, I got 3 additional unopened bottles.
So i drove home on Tuesday with 15 bottles of wine in my trunk, including: a Ruby Red Grapefruit wine, an apple wine, and other mostly red wines, generally zin, cabernet, and syrah.
After the competition we got to taste some of the winners. This was a real trip. I tasted lemon wines, golden raspberry wines, tomato wines ( actually quite good ), a totally awesome black raspberry wine, a bell pepper wine, among many others. I was looking specifically for the fruit wines because I was pretty sure I wouldn't run into them that often again at the Safeway store and I needed to be familiar with them for my experience for the AWS Wine Judge Certification program.
I admit that some of the wines that i brought home, I tasted once and poured out. Not that the wine was bad, just that it wasn't that interesting enough for me to invest my time in it beyond becoming familiar with the taste and characteristics. That is one of the pleasures of 'free' wine - you don't feel bad if it goes in the sink and down the drain.
------
Then yesterday I had a great time at a tasting of "Wines of Navarra". I had volunteered to help out with the people who were staging the event. The Oxbow Wine Merchant in Napa was the local sponsor and the "Wines of Spain" and especially the region of Navarra supplied the wines and the literature about them.
This was a fun event and as well as the public tasting, there was also an on-line virtual tasting and a simultaneous "tweet up" about the event where tasters were encouraged to let others know about the tasting and if there were any wines they liked.
We had over 125 people tasting 10 different wines and there were 2-4 pourers keeping busy all of the time. i was totally surprised that I could remember where a particular taster was in the order even if he/she was gone for several minutes before returning to taste the next wine. i suppose that people who do this more often get good at it. For me it was a surprise - but at same time it reminded me of 30 years ago when I was an air traffic controller and had to keep aircraft locations in my head.
It is a lot of fun to actually work with the public and be a pourer. I don't have the full skill set to actually keep up the patter and actually sell the wines as I am pouring them, plus we were much too busy to even try but maybe that will come in time. Note: We were not actually selling the wines, it was purely educational and we didn't actually have any wines available to sell, but when I talk about 'selling' I mean giving the taster the full story about the wine, a handle by which to remember it, something he/she can take home and then remember that wine later on.
After the event was over, the best part came. The pourers were offered the opportunity to take some of the wines home. In fact because it had been such a busy and popular event we were given several bottle to take home.
So now my wine closet is full again. Such is the life of a wine student.
john
Then this last week happened. Sunday, I volunteered for the California Home Winemakers Competition and in appreciation I got 6 unopened wines ( from the 2nd / backup bottles of each entry ), 6 wines that had been opened and poured, and for volunteering on Sunday as well, I got 3 additional unopened bottles.
So i drove home on Tuesday with 15 bottles of wine in my trunk, including: a Ruby Red Grapefruit wine, an apple wine, and other mostly red wines, generally zin, cabernet, and syrah.
After the competition we got to taste some of the winners. This was a real trip. I tasted lemon wines, golden raspberry wines, tomato wines ( actually quite good ), a totally awesome black raspberry wine, a bell pepper wine, among many others. I was looking specifically for the fruit wines because I was pretty sure I wouldn't run into them that often again at the Safeway store and I needed to be familiar with them for my experience for the AWS Wine Judge Certification program.
I admit that some of the wines that i brought home, I tasted once and poured out. Not that the wine was bad, just that it wasn't that interesting enough for me to invest my time in it beyond becoming familiar with the taste and characteristics. That is one of the pleasures of 'free' wine - you don't feel bad if it goes in the sink and down the drain.
------
Then yesterday I had a great time at a tasting of "Wines of Navarra". I had volunteered to help out with the people who were staging the event. The Oxbow Wine Merchant in Napa was the local sponsor and the "Wines of Spain" and especially the region of Navarra supplied the wines and the literature about them.
This was a fun event and as well as the public tasting, there was also an on-line virtual tasting and a simultaneous "tweet up" about the event where tasters were encouraged to let others know about the tasting and if there were any wines they liked.
We had over 125 people tasting 10 different wines and there were 2-4 pourers keeping busy all of the time. i was totally surprised that I could remember where a particular taster was in the order even if he/she was gone for several minutes before returning to taste the next wine. i suppose that people who do this more often get good at it. For me it was a surprise - but at same time it reminded me of 30 years ago when I was an air traffic controller and had to keep aircraft locations in my head.
It is a lot of fun to actually work with the public and be a pourer. I don't have the full skill set to actually keep up the patter and actually sell the wines as I am pouring them, plus we were much too busy to even try but maybe that will come in time. Note: We were not actually selling the wines, it was purely educational and we didn't actually have any wines available to sell, but when I talk about 'selling' I mean giving the taster the full story about the wine, a handle by which to remember it, something he/she can take home and then remember that wine later on.
After the event was over, the best part came. The pourers were offered the opportunity to take some of the wines home. In fact because it had been such a busy and popular event we were given several bottle to take home.
So now my wine closet is full again. Such is the life of a wine student.
john
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)