I mentioned earlier that I had taken the Center for Wine Origins exam for the Wine Location Specialist, and that it involved learning about what makes both Champagne and Port unique to their origins in France and Portugal respectively. (My thanks to them for the invitation)
A side benefit of taking the test, is that I was invited as a guest of the Center to the Champagne Grand Tasting 2011 in San Francisco that was held 2 days ago on May 25th. It was held in the top floor ballroom at the St Francis Hotel near Union Square.
From my viewpoint the tasting seems to be an unqualified success. The venue was beautiful (the view of The City was awesome), the crowd was ruly and fashionable, the cheeses and nibbles were tasty and the wines were excellent. I did not find a wine that I disliked.
I think the organizers did a great service in the way the tasting floor was laid out. First there were a long row of tables with iced champagne buckets and samples of most every wine to be tasted that day. If all you wanted to do was to efficiently taste and move on, then this was the spot to do it. The area was kept well stocked, and while a little crowded, the line moved without major delay.
Then, in the larger room, each distributor had a separate area around a ring of tables and if you wanted to get to know the wine better, you had an opportunity to talk to a representative for that wine. Here you got a chance to hear the story, the blend, the special characteristics that made up that wine. Some times this area moved more slowly, than the outer room, some tables were crowded, but you could still move around and get to meet those wineries that made the wines that attracted you in the outer room.
There were over 30 wineries, each pouring about 3 wines. It seemed that everybody had at least 1 vintage champagne, 1 non vintage, and many also had rose's - which I learned, for the first time, is sometimes actually made by adding some Pinot Noir still wine to the Champagne blend. Of the 90+ wines at least 7 were Premier Cru and at least 6 were from Grand Cru vineyards.
If you are new to large tastings such as this, my first recommendation is : "learn to spit". Believe it or not, you actually have a lot more fun if you taste and spit rather than swallow. You mind stays clear, your tasting notes stay legible, you tend not to spill or drool as much and your conversations with those around you are more elevated, despite how hilarious you think you may be after you have had a few sips.
So on to a few of my notes:
1) There is a difference. Champagnes do not all taste the same. If you went to a Zinfandel, or Tempranillo tasting ( by the way there is one coming up in San Francisco on June 5th ) you would expect to taste wines that were similar but different. It is the same with Champagne yet I think the differences are a little more subtle than for the other wines. You have to look for them, but they are there.
2) Vintage vs non-vintage (NV). I try to think of these as being different styles. Both can be equally good, and each has its admirers. The vintage wines will have more autolytic / yeasty breakdown characters, will have some more body in your mouth, and might feel less spritzy on your tongue. The non vintage will have a little more brightness, a little more sparkle and perhaps some more fresh fruit characteristics. Both styles have their place.
3) The Blend. Champagnes tend to be a blend. Either blends between years (NV), or almost always blends between vineyards and grapes. The ratio of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and Pinot Muniere wines in the blend gives slightly different character to each wine. It sometimes defines a house style, or at least a particular brand style. I could tell the differences when the main grape was Chardonnay and when it was one of the Pinots. At least when the ratios were in the 80/20 range. If they were more along the 50/50, then I am not so sure i could have told them apart.
4) AC vs. 1er Cru verses Grand Cru. Of the 319 villages that make Champagne wine some 44 are 1er Cru and only 17 are Grand Cru. Grand Cru can of course ask for a higher price for their wines and can take some extra care in production or can afford to age them a little longer. In some cases the difference really shows and I felt fortunate to have the opportunity to taste several of each.
A couple of my favorites:
1999 and 2000 St Chamant Brut. Blanc de Blanc. Grand Cru: there were both very nice wines the 2000 having a very long finish, and the 1999 having even more fruit than the younger vintage. For a blanc de blanc the 2000 seemed like it had really soft red fruit as well.
Champagne Mailly Grand Cru had 3 wines that I liked. The Mailly Grand Cru Brut Reserve was a blend of 75% Pinot and 25% Chardonnay. It was fresh, and had a really fruity aroma and a long dry finish.
The Mailly Grand Cru Brut Vintage 2004 had the typical lower acid, and higher autolytic flavors that one would expect. It had spent 5 years on the yeast, while legally vintage champagnes only need to spend 3 years before riddling and bottling. Finally the Mailly Grand Cru "Les Echansons" 2000 vintage was their prestige wine. It was from old vine Pinot Noirs and had aged 10 years on the yeast. Unfortunately I was too busy listening to the story of the 70 families from Mailly that created the cooperative after the great depression of 1929, that I actually forgot to make any tasting notes. I do remember that I liked the wine.
Champagne Thionot makes a NV Brut that is 45% Chard, 35% Pinot Noir and 20% Pinot Muniere. It has nice aromas and an almost creamy mouthfeel despite being a non vintage and therefore probably not aged as long, though it could have been blended with some great older vintages. The Rose was clean with only a light foam. It was 75% Pinot Noir and it was one of the ones that was made by adding 7% still wine Pinot to it. My notes for the Grand Cuvee Alain Thienot 1999 include "a long finish that calls you back". That of course should be a goal of every good wine.
I have a number of notes for various producers that just say "fruits, soft, classic, light, fresh, crisp". in some cases I just wrote "neutral". Looking back I found only 2 notes that were less than positive. One of them was Pierre Gimonnet et Fils 1er Cuis Brut NV - I thought this one had a slight bite to it that took away my enjoyment. Another, the Philipponnat Royale Reserve Brut NV my only note is "disconcerting" because something, and I am sorry I can not remember exactly what, left me wondering what it was that i didn't like about it.
All and all this was a really great event with some really nice wines. My thanks to the Champagne Bureau for putting it on and the Center for Wine Origins for snagging me a free pass.
john
Friday, May 27, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
French Wine Scholar Course
I think I mentioned before that I am a certification slut. Earlier this month I attempted the Wine Location Specialist exam from the Center for Wine Origins. Today i received notification that I passed the detailed exam testing knowledge of both Champagne and Port wine production. (yea).
I just signed up for a new one.
I now am scheduled to take the French Wine Scholar exam in the middle of August. This one might be a bear. I am not sure. They have a well-done study guide that is about 250 pages of what seems, at first glance, to be pretty detailed subject matter. It covers, in 12 chapters, each of the major wine producing regions of France.
Each chapter goes into a) The History of the region, b) The location and Climate c) the Geology and Soils d) The Grapes and Wine styles, e) the Production methods, f) The Appellations and their laws ( with sections for sub appellations) g) Food pairing for these wines. There are also lots of great maps, diagrams, and pictures that help make a book like this readable.
As I said, it is a detailed piece of work. I am excited to be studying for this test, although I haven't actually started yet, because I am still prepping for WSET - Fortified Wines test in 2 weeks, but I am both excited and overwhelmed by the volume of information available.
I have allocated June and July to learn this manual. ( 1 to 2 regions a week?) I am helping myself a little by attending a 1 day review on the topics, and also using the (optional) on-line study modules that the French Wine Society provides candidates who want to take the test by self study. The test is on August 13th, so i know what i will be doing this summer.
Also, i think some of my past classes can help. I had to learn about French wines at NVC, and also in my CSW and WSET-Advanced classes. ANY wine course is, of course, going to present a section on French wines. So i don't think I will need to learn many new terms, or general information about the regions. I should be able to concentrate on just the facts that I need to take things that one level deeper that i would need to specialize in a particular region.
In the end, I am hoping I can tie all of these sources of information together ( i.e. Napa Valley College, SWE, WSET, French Wine Society, Port & Champagne Location specialist ) and come out of this adventure a possibly confused but well-educated wine professional.
Meanwhile I can't possibly describe how much fun I am having doing it. Homework consists of nightly discussions and wine tasting on the patio with my wife, trying new wines every week, and attending tastings and classes whenever I can. I would recommend it to anyone who has the time, a working spouse, a sense of adventure and a willingness to study hard and a desire to learn about wine.
Speaking of Tasting wines .... Tomorrow ( as a newly pinned Wine Location Specialist ), I am attending the Champagne Grand Wine Tasting in San Francisco as a guest of the Center for Wine Origins and the Comite' Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne). About 30 producers will be pouring their best Champagnes and I am looking forward to "tasting the stars" ( traditionally attributed to Dom Perignon when he tasted Champagne). I will write about it later this week.
Cheers !
john
I just signed up for a new one.
I now am scheduled to take the French Wine Scholar exam in the middle of August. This one might be a bear. I am not sure. They have a well-done study guide that is about 250 pages of what seems, at first glance, to be pretty detailed subject matter. It covers, in 12 chapters, each of the major wine producing regions of France.
Each chapter goes into a) The History of the region, b) The location and Climate c) the Geology and Soils d) The Grapes and Wine styles, e) the Production methods, f) The Appellations and their laws ( with sections for sub appellations) g) Food pairing for these wines. There are also lots of great maps, diagrams, and pictures that help make a book like this readable.
As I said, it is a detailed piece of work. I am excited to be studying for this test, although I haven't actually started yet, because I am still prepping for WSET - Fortified Wines test in 2 weeks, but I am both excited and overwhelmed by the volume of information available.
I have allocated June and July to learn this manual. ( 1 to 2 regions a week?) I am helping myself a little by attending a 1 day review on the topics, and also using the (optional) on-line study modules that the French Wine Society provides candidates who want to take the test by self study. The test is on August 13th, so i know what i will be doing this summer.
Also, i think some of my past classes can help. I had to learn about French wines at NVC, and also in my CSW and WSET-Advanced classes. ANY wine course is, of course, going to present a section on French wines. So i don't think I will need to learn many new terms, or general information about the regions. I should be able to concentrate on just the facts that I need to take things that one level deeper that i would need to specialize in a particular region.
In the end, I am hoping I can tie all of these sources of information together ( i.e. Napa Valley College, SWE, WSET, French Wine Society, Port & Champagne Location specialist ) and come out of this adventure a possibly confused but well-educated wine professional.
Meanwhile I can't possibly describe how much fun I am having doing it. Homework consists of nightly discussions and wine tasting on the patio with my wife, trying new wines every week, and attending tastings and classes whenever I can. I would recommend it to anyone who has the time, a working spouse, a sense of adventure and a willingness to study hard and a desire to learn about wine.
Speaking of Tasting wines .... Tomorrow ( as a newly pinned Wine Location Specialist ), I am attending the Champagne Grand Wine Tasting in San Francisco as a guest of the Center for Wine Origins and the Comite' Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne). About 30 producers will be pouring their best Champagnes and I am looking forward to "tasting the stars" ( traditionally attributed to Dom Perignon when he tasted Champagne). I will write about it later this week.
Cheers !
john
Sunday, May 22, 2011
American Wine Society - Wine Judge Certification
I joined the American Wine Society two weeks ago. Part of a new Napa Valley Chapter.
The AWS mostly is a social and educational group. Monthly meetings and wine tastings. However they also have a Wine Judge Certification Program (WJCP). I joined this the other day.
The WJCP is a 3 year program that revolves around learning the principals of tasting, learning your own capabilities, limitations, learning how to judge, and how to conduct a judged tasting. There is an exam of the judge candidates that is held each year at their national convention. You have to pass the exam for each year to proceed to the next years syllabus. I don't have all of the details yet, but it seems that there is a written test with multiple guess, true/false and also essay questions. There is also a tasting during which you describe and score 5 wines and also in a separate tasting you need to recognize among 7-8 possible wine faults out of 9 wines and a base control wine. The base wine is duplicated among the test samples and they may duplicate a certain fault as well. You need to recognize 7 of the 10 to pass.
One the 5 wine tasting, the way I understand it is that there are 3 judges who will also taste the wines and develop a consensus description and consensus score. The candidate needs to come within a certain number of points in the scoring when compared to the consensus in order to pass the test.
As part of working on this there is an online tasting group that meets monthly to learn to calibrate and standardize their descriptions, in the hope that they will then learn to calibrate against the judges.
Being a Californian and being near Napa Valley, I am used to a certain subset of wines - the "international" varieties that everybody knows: e.g. Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay,. Riesling, Syrah, Zinfandel, Petit Syrah, Sauvignon blanc, etc. The tasting group tonight was tasting A Concord desert wine and a Pink Catawba desert wine. Next month it will be Norton, Chambourcin, and Vignoles. Now I have heard of these before and have actually been impressed by a Norton that I had, but I am not so sure that I even know what color the other two wines are. This is a good reminder that there are a lot of wines that are grown on the east coast , in the northern states and mid-west that are popular, but tend to be local to the area where they are grown.
A good example of this is my brother who lives on the east coast and who loves scuppernog but has never heard of Zinfandel or Sauvignon blanc, both wines that I love and I of course have never tasted a scuppernog. It is like we have two different wine drinking countries. I think also that some west coasters are prejudiced against the American or Hybrid varieties but mostly because they don't know them.
Anyhow I am looking forward to following along with this judging program and will keep this blow updated with those events.
john
The AWS mostly is a social and educational group. Monthly meetings and wine tastings. However they also have a Wine Judge Certification Program (WJCP). I joined this the other day.
The WJCP is a 3 year program that revolves around learning the principals of tasting, learning your own capabilities, limitations, learning how to judge, and how to conduct a judged tasting. There is an exam of the judge candidates that is held each year at their national convention. You have to pass the exam for each year to proceed to the next years syllabus. I don't have all of the details yet, but it seems that there is a written test with multiple guess, true/false and also essay questions. There is also a tasting during which you describe and score 5 wines and also in a separate tasting you need to recognize among 7-8 possible wine faults out of 9 wines and a base control wine. The base wine is duplicated among the test samples and they may duplicate a certain fault as well. You need to recognize 7 of the 10 to pass.
One the 5 wine tasting, the way I understand it is that there are 3 judges who will also taste the wines and develop a consensus description and consensus score. The candidate needs to come within a certain number of points in the scoring when compared to the consensus in order to pass the test.
As part of working on this there is an online tasting group that meets monthly to learn to calibrate and standardize their descriptions, in the hope that they will then learn to calibrate against the judges.
Being a Californian and being near Napa Valley, I am used to a certain subset of wines - the "international" varieties that everybody knows: e.g. Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay,. Riesling, Syrah, Zinfandel, Petit Syrah, Sauvignon blanc, etc. The tasting group tonight was tasting A Concord desert wine and a Pink Catawba desert wine. Next month it will be Norton, Chambourcin, and Vignoles. Now I have heard of these before and have actually been impressed by a Norton that I had, but I am not so sure that I even know what color the other two wines are. This is a good reminder that there are a lot of wines that are grown on the east coast , in the northern states and mid-west that are popular, but tend to be local to the area where they are grown.
A good example of this is my brother who lives on the east coast and who loves scuppernog but has never heard of Zinfandel or Sauvignon blanc, both wines that I love and I of course have never tasted a scuppernog. It is like we have two different wine drinking countries. I think also that some west coasters are prejudiced against the American or Hybrid varieties but mostly because they don't know them.
Anyhow I am looking forward to following along with this judging program and will keep this blow updated with those events.
john
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Studying for Unit 6
I have 1 month to go before my Wine and Spirits Education Trust - Unit 6 exam.
Even though it is Unit 6, it is only my 2nd exam. My first was Unit 2 - the Viticulture and Winemaking exam that has to be taken before any other. I took that in April and the next available exam was Unit 6 - Fortified Wines and so I am scheduled to take that on June 6th.
Most APPs ( Approved Program Providers ) offer an in-person course where you can taste wines that they provide, learn how they distinguish between different colors of wines ( is that a deep amber with red tints or is it a medium tawny color ), pick up on aromas, get feed back on levels of acidity, etc. You also get basic information on the Producers, Regions, and Styles of fortified wines.
Or you can self study, which is what I am doing because the course wasn't being offered at this time. I can take the test, because they are scheduled a couple of times each year by WSET Global and one can generally work with their APP to sit for a test even if they haven't taken the course. It is relatively common, I think. You can save several hundred $ by doing self study, although you will also spend a couple of hundred on buying your own wines.
So. I have been studying for about a month now. I spend probably 10-15 hours a week at it. What I like about WSET is that they are organized. They have a syllabus, they have a study guide, and they use the Ultimate textbook which is Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine. The syllabus tells you what are the general areas of study that you should know. The study guide gives you a specific list of topics that you will be tested on, And the Oxford Companion has all of the topics in encyclopedic format. One just has to read and learn them, and in some cases to relate two or three together, combine them into a larger subject area and to be prepared to write about them. the test will pick 3 topics at random out of the 150, but may word the question so that you have to combine the knowledge of 2 or 3 topics.
There are about 150 individual topics in the study guide. They are spread throughout the 800 page Oxford Companion. As part of my studies, I paraphrased each of the topics into a text document, to help learn the information ( read it once while reading it, read it a 2nd time while writing it ), but also to help my review. I now have a 27 page text document that contains all of my notes in one place ( If anybody ever reads this and wants a copy - let me know and I will e-mail it to you. I just don't want to post it, because even though it is in my own words ( mostly ) it could violate copyright.) Now when I study I can take my pages anywhere and work from topic to topic without paging through the book.
I also spent the last month tasting wines, at least the ones that I could find at Costco, Bevmo and a couple of specialty liquor stores in San Francisco. It is actually kind of hard to find a Banyuls fortified Grenache, or a Rutherglen Muscat from Australia. I will be pathetically guessing if either of these comes up on the test. However, I did make a set of tasting notes about the wines I did drink. I am going to share those here, in hopes that it can give you some additional insights when you do your own tasting.
Sherrys:
First of all, in my limited experience if you are tasting fortified wines and it is almost clear, is light, is low on acid, and has a particular taste that I recognize as fermenting bread dough, though you may also recognize it as over-ripe apples, because of the aldehydes that the flor yeast produces, then it is either a Fino or a Manzanilla. You will read that Monzanilla has a "salty tang". I believe that is true, and I think that is the way to tell them apart.
Now it gets harder.
Amontillado - one hears that many of the commercial amontillados that one finds today are not "traditional" ones that are Finos whose flor has died exposing the wine to oxidation and darkening and becoming heavier and richer. The more modern ones might be a blend of some fino and some oloroso, giving an intermediate with that has an amber color, some caramel aromas but still a little of the yeasty flavor I mentioned above. A True Amontillado should be dry - it was a fino to begin with. The more modern style may have some sweetness.
It can be hard to tell an Oloroso - especially a medium one, from a modern style Amontillado. Color will be the same, Aging will be the same. They will both probably be slightly sweet. You should be able to tell them apart because the oloroso never aged under Flor like the fino did, and shouldn't have the flavors associated with that yeast.
A Cream Sherry is always a blend. Mostly one is judging its higher level of sweetness to differentiate from other olorosos.
Almost all of the Sherries will have a light acidity and a moderate ( for a fortified wine ) alcohol. Remember flor yeast can only live between about 15% - 16% ABV so finos come out at around that alcohol. while Olorosos are fortified to 16-18% to prevent flor from growing. These are good things to remember when trying to differentiate between a rich caramel tasting oloroso and a tawny Port.
Ports
I don't know if I will be able to tell between a Ruby (lower quality), Reserve (higher quality), Late Bottled Vintage - LVB (high quality) and a Vintage or Single Quinta Vintage (both highest quality) Port. Honestly, I don't expect that they will pour an expensive Vintage port for the test. They exist but can be hard to come by. The LBV may show some wood characteristics, the Vintage or Single Quinta may throw some sediment in your class. Other than that I think you have to go for quality and complexity.
The tawny Ports pose an different problem. Colheita, and the various Tawnys with age are going to taste very similar AND they will have some of the same caramel, hazelnut, walnut flavors as the Oloroso sherries. (darn it). You might expect the Colheita to have a little more fruit flavor. You might expect a 20 year old Tawny ( or 30 or 40 ) to have more color. In either event, the Port will probably have a higher suggestion of alcohol than the Oloroso sherries. I generally got some alcohol burn with the Ports but not the sherries. Also, the Ports have a tawny color and the sherries have an amber color. To me, the tawny has some more of a red tint to it.
Madeira
These wines have the same tawny to brown color as the Tawny Ports. The difference that I notice is that the sugar tastes baked. That is, it doesn't taste so caramel like, it tastes more like the sugar you get in a peanut brittle or toffee. I think this comes from the fact that these wines are heated during aging and that baked flavor does come through. The other thing to notice is that Madeira ( to me at least ) don't have quite the same alcohol as a tawny port. And they have a LOT more acid than an oloroso sherry. Probably even more than the Tawny.
From a tasting sense and from a "what is this wine?" sense which in the big picture is not that important in a WSET tasting, here is my summary.
Even though it is Unit 6, it is only my 2nd exam. My first was Unit 2 - the Viticulture and Winemaking exam that has to be taken before any other. I took that in April and the next available exam was Unit 6 - Fortified Wines and so I am scheduled to take that on June 6th.
Most APPs ( Approved Program Providers ) offer an in-person course where you can taste wines that they provide, learn how they distinguish between different colors of wines ( is that a deep amber with red tints or is it a medium tawny color ), pick up on aromas, get feed back on levels of acidity, etc. You also get basic information on the Producers, Regions, and Styles of fortified wines.
Or you can self study, which is what I am doing because the course wasn't being offered at this time. I can take the test, because they are scheduled a couple of times each year by WSET Global and one can generally work with their APP to sit for a test even if they haven't taken the course. It is relatively common, I think. You can save several hundred $ by doing self study, although you will also spend a couple of hundred on buying your own wines.
So. I have been studying for about a month now. I spend probably 10-15 hours a week at it. What I like about WSET is that they are organized. They have a syllabus, they have a study guide, and they use the Ultimate textbook which is Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine. The syllabus tells you what are the general areas of study that you should know. The study guide gives you a specific list of topics that you will be tested on, And the Oxford Companion has all of the topics in encyclopedic format. One just has to read and learn them, and in some cases to relate two or three together, combine them into a larger subject area and to be prepared to write about them. the test will pick 3 topics at random out of the 150, but may word the question so that you have to combine the knowledge of 2 or 3 topics.
There are about 150 individual topics in the study guide. They are spread throughout the 800 page Oxford Companion. As part of my studies, I paraphrased each of the topics into a text document, to help learn the information ( read it once while reading it, read it a 2nd time while writing it ), but also to help my review. I now have a 27 page text document that contains all of my notes in one place ( If anybody ever reads this and wants a copy - let me know and I will e-mail it to you. I just don't want to post it, because even though it is in my own words ( mostly ) it could violate copyright.) Now when I study I can take my pages anywhere and work from topic to topic without paging through the book.
I also spent the last month tasting wines, at least the ones that I could find at Costco, Bevmo and a couple of specialty liquor stores in San Francisco. It is actually kind of hard to find a Banyuls fortified Grenache, or a Rutherglen Muscat from Australia. I will be pathetically guessing if either of these comes up on the test. However, I did make a set of tasting notes about the wines I did drink. I am going to share those here, in hopes that it can give you some additional insights when you do your own tasting.
Sherrys:
First of all, in my limited experience if you are tasting fortified wines and it is almost clear, is light, is low on acid, and has a particular taste that I recognize as fermenting bread dough, though you may also recognize it as over-ripe apples, because of the aldehydes that the flor yeast produces, then it is either a Fino or a Manzanilla. You will read that Monzanilla has a "salty tang". I believe that is true, and I think that is the way to tell them apart.
Now it gets harder.
Amontillado - one hears that many of the commercial amontillados that one finds today are not "traditional" ones that are Finos whose flor has died exposing the wine to oxidation and darkening and becoming heavier and richer. The more modern ones might be a blend of some fino and some oloroso, giving an intermediate with that has an amber color, some caramel aromas but still a little of the yeasty flavor I mentioned above. A True Amontillado should be dry - it was a fino to begin with. The more modern style may have some sweetness.
It can be hard to tell an Oloroso - especially a medium one, from a modern style Amontillado. Color will be the same, Aging will be the same. They will both probably be slightly sweet. You should be able to tell them apart because the oloroso never aged under Flor like the fino did, and shouldn't have the flavors associated with that yeast.
A Cream Sherry is always a blend. Mostly one is judging its higher level of sweetness to differentiate from other olorosos.
Almost all of the Sherries will have a light acidity and a moderate ( for a fortified wine ) alcohol. Remember flor yeast can only live between about 15% - 16% ABV so finos come out at around that alcohol. while Olorosos are fortified to 16-18% to prevent flor from growing. These are good things to remember when trying to differentiate between a rich caramel tasting oloroso and a tawny Port.
Ports
I don't know if I will be able to tell between a Ruby (lower quality), Reserve (higher quality), Late Bottled Vintage - LVB (high quality) and a Vintage or Single Quinta Vintage (both highest quality) Port. Honestly, I don't expect that they will pour an expensive Vintage port for the test. They exist but can be hard to come by. The LBV may show some wood characteristics, the Vintage or Single Quinta may throw some sediment in your class. Other than that I think you have to go for quality and complexity.
The tawny Ports pose an different problem. Colheita, and the various Tawnys with age are going to taste very similar AND they will have some of the same caramel, hazelnut, walnut flavors as the Oloroso sherries. (darn it). You might expect the Colheita to have a little more fruit flavor. You might expect a 20 year old Tawny ( or 30 or 40 ) to have more color. In either event, the Port will probably have a higher suggestion of alcohol than the Oloroso sherries. I generally got some alcohol burn with the Ports but not the sherries. Also, the Ports have a tawny color and the sherries have an amber color. To me, the tawny has some more of a red tint to it.
Madeira
These wines have the same tawny to brown color as the Tawny Ports. The difference that I notice is that the sugar tastes baked. That is, it doesn't taste so caramel like, it tastes more like the sugar you get in a peanut brittle or toffee. I think this comes from the fact that these wines are heated during aging and that baked flavor does come through. The other thing to notice is that Madeira ( to me at least ) don't have quite the same alcohol as a tawny port. And they have a LOT more acid than an oloroso sherry. Probably even more than the Tawny.
From a tasting sense and from a "what is this wine?" sense which in the big picture is not that important in a WSET tasting, here is my summary.
In General
a) Mederia has slightly higher acids. Sherry does not.
b) Port has alcohol burn. Sherry does not. Madeira does not.
c) Olorosos might be syrupy, tawny's could. Madeiras not.
d) Manzanilla does have salty overtones to yeast. fino does not.
e) Olorosos are amber. (no red ). Tawnys are tawny ( with a shade or red or brown ). Madeiras can be full brown and a Malmsey can have a brown core but broad a yellow-green(ish) rim
f) Madeiras have toffee – baked sugar. Tawnys are caramel, but not baked. Ditto Olorosos
g) Amontillados are dry (or should be). Olorosos are sweet.
Anyhow - here is where I am with a month to go. I hope this can help in your Unit 6 test prep or just thinking about fortified wines in general.
john
Friday, May 13, 2011
My Homework !
As mentioned in my last post. You can take WSET courses as self-study. One one hand you save several hundred $$ by not going to the class sessions. On the other hand, you are responsible for getting and tasting your own samples of the various wines you can expect to see. This will cost you a couple hundred $$ as well.
It is NOT a wash, self study is definitely cheaper and having the wines yourself means that you get several tastes, you can compare it against different other wines, and you can take your time trying to understand this wine - whereas in class you will probably be moving along to another tasting. You do lose by not having other's opinions and tastes experiences to add to your own, but one can often find these in reviews, or books on wine. For example you can find a lot of references for a generic Nebbiolo. It is light in color, it is high acid, it is high tannin, it may have dark fruit flavors and aromas, you may find more tertiary aromas than fruit ones. A specific Nebbiolo may very well have oak, spice, tar, bramble, etc. You will generally find these on your own.
Generally in WSET tastings, you need to recognize 2 aromas, and then 3 flavors after tasting it, and the aromas and the flavors can be the same. The trick is that they need to be the ones that the official taster also gets and records. If your official taster gets 6-7 aromas / flavors, then you have a fair chance to match and get full points on that part of your tasting.
So, I have spent the last month tasting Manzanilla, Fino, Pale Dry, Oloroso, Cream, and Amontillado Sherries. I have also been tasting Ruby, Late Bottled vintage, Colheita, and Tawny Ports with an indication of age ( 5, 10, and 20 years old ). Also a 5 year old Verdelho Madeira, and a 10 year old "Malmsey" - Malvasia Madeira.
I have been trying to understand the differences in Color, in Alcohol, in Acidity, plus the unique characteristics that each brings to the table.
For my tasting test, I will be given 3 wines in a blind tasting and have to describe them according to the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting. This approach is also very similar to the one used by the Society of Wine Educators, so I am happy to find that out and work with it.
One describes the wine according to 4 standard categories, and several ad-hoc ones, that can change according to the tasting: see the image below
Note that it isn't specifically required to guess what the wine is, although often that is done as part of the quality assessment, the country of origin or the grape variety involved. For a Sherry it might not be to hard. It is a Palomino Fino grape from Spain. However when you consider a Port, it is a lot harder ... over 80 grape varieties are allowed and often Ports are actually a field blend and in an old vineyard, the grower himself may not know the full mix of the varieties. It is enough to know the type of Port and perhaps the growing region.
So finally, here is the results of my homework over the last month. 14 empty bottles and a bunch of (very) happy memories
It is NOT a wash, self study is definitely cheaper and having the wines yourself means that you get several tastes, you can compare it against different other wines, and you can take your time trying to understand this wine - whereas in class you will probably be moving along to another tasting. You do lose by not having other's opinions and tastes experiences to add to your own, but one can often find these in reviews, or books on wine. For example you can find a lot of references for a generic Nebbiolo. It is light in color, it is high acid, it is high tannin, it may have dark fruit flavors and aromas, you may find more tertiary aromas than fruit ones. A specific Nebbiolo may very well have oak, spice, tar, bramble, etc. You will generally find these on your own.
Generally in WSET tastings, you need to recognize 2 aromas, and then 3 flavors after tasting it, and the aromas and the flavors can be the same. The trick is that they need to be the ones that the official taster also gets and records. If your official taster gets 6-7 aromas / flavors, then you have a fair chance to match and get full points on that part of your tasting.
So, I have spent the last month tasting Manzanilla, Fino, Pale Dry, Oloroso, Cream, and Amontillado Sherries. I have also been tasting Ruby, Late Bottled vintage, Colheita, and Tawny Ports with an indication of age ( 5, 10, and 20 years old ). Also a 5 year old Verdelho Madeira, and a 10 year old "Malmsey" - Malvasia Madeira.
I have been trying to understand the differences in Color, in Alcohol, in Acidity, plus the unique characteristics that each brings to the table.
For my tasting test, I will be given 3 wines in a blind tasting and have to describe them according to the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting. This approach is also very similar to the one used by the Society of Wine Educators, so I am happy to find that out and work with it.
One describes the wine according to 4 standard categories, and several ad-hoc ones, that can change according to the tasting: see the image below
Note that it isn't specifically required to guess what the wine is, although often that is done as part of the quality assessment, the country of origin or the grape variety involved. For a Sherry it might not be to hard. It is a Palomino Fino grape from Spain. However when you consider a Port, it is a lot harder ... over 80 grape varieties are allowed and often Ports are actually a field blend and in an old vineyard, the grower himself may not know the full mix of the varieties. It is enough to know the type of Port and perhaps the growing region.
So finally, here is the results of my homework over the last month. 14 empty bottles and a bunch of (very) happy memories
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Studying for Unit 6
I have 1 month to go before my Wine and Spirits Education Trust - Unit 6 exam.
Even though it is Unit 6, it is only my 2nd exam. My first was Unit 2 - the Viticulture and Winemaking exam that has to be taken before any other. I took that in April and the next available exam was Unit 6 - Fortified Wines and so I am scheduled to take that on June 6th.
Most APPs ( Approved Program Providers ) offer an in-person course where you can taste wines that they provide, learn how they distinguish between different colors of wines ( is that a deep amber with red tints or is it a medium tawny color ), pick up on aromas, get feed back on levels of acidity, etc. You also get basic information on the Producers, Regions, and Styles of fortified wines.
Or you can self study, which is what I am doing because the course wasn't being offered at this time. I can take the test, because they are scheduled a couple of times each year by WSET Global and one can generally work with their APP to sit for a test even if they haven't taken the course. It is relatively common, I think. You can save several hundred $ by doing self study, although you will also spend a couple of hundred on buying your own wines.
So. I have been studying for about a month now. I spend probably 10-15 hours a week at it. What I like about WSET is that they are organized. They have a syllabus, they have a study guide, and they use the Ultimate textbook which is Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine. The syllabus tells you what are the general areas of study that you should know. The study guide gives you a specific list of topics that you will be tested on, And the Oxford Companion has all of the topics in encyclopedic format. One just has to read and learn them, and in some cases to relate two or three together, combine them into a larger subject area and to be prepared to write about them. the test will pick 3 topics at random out of the 150, but may word the question so that you have to combine the knowledge of 2 or 3 topics.
There are about 150 individual topics in the study guide. They are spread throughout the 800 page Oxford Companion. As part of my studies, I paraphrased each of the topics into a text document, to help learn the information ( read it once while reading it, read it a 2nd time while writing it ), but also to help my review. I now have a 27 page text document that contains all of my notes in one place ( If anybody ever reads this and wants a copy - let me know and I will e-mail it to you. I just don't want to post it, because even though it is in my own words ( mostly ) it could violate copyright.) Now when I study I can take my pages anywhere and work from topic to topic without paging through the book.
I also spent the last month tasting wines, at least the ones that I could find at Costco, Bevmo and a couple of specialty liquor stores in San Francisco. It is actually kind of hard to find a Banyuls fortified Grenache, or a Rutherglen Muscat from Australia. I will be pathetically guessing if either of these comes up on the test. However, I did make a set of tasting notes about the wines I did drink. I am going to share those here, in hopes that it can give you some additional insights when you do your own tasting.
Sherrys:
First of all, in my limited experience if you are tasting fortified wines and it is almost clear, is light, is low on acid, and has a particular taste that I recognize as fermenting bread dough, though you may also recognize it as over-ripe apples, because of the aldehydes that the flor yeast produces, then it is either a Fino or a Manzanilla. You will read that Monzanilla has a "salty tang". I believe that is true, and I think that is the way to tell them apart.
Now it gets harder.
Amontillado - one hears that many of the commercial amontillados that one finds today are not "traditional" ones that are Finos whose flor has died exposing the wine to oxidation and darkening and becoming heavier and richer. The more modern ones might be a blend of some fino and some oloroso, giving an intermediate with that has an amber color, some caramel aromas but still a little of the yeasty flavor I mentioned above. A True Amontillado should be dry - it was a fino to begin with. The more modern style may have some sweetness.
It can be hard to tell an Oloroso - especially a medium one, from a modern style Amontillado. Color will be the same, Aging will be the same. They will both probably be slightly sweet. You should be able to tell them apart because the oloroso never aged under Flor like the fino did, and shouldn't have the flavors associated with that yeast.
A Cream Sherry is always a blend. Mostly one is judging its higher level of sweetness to differentiate from other olorosos.
Almost all of the Sherries will have a light acidity and a moderate ( for a fortified wine ) alcohol. Remember flor yeast can only live between about 15% - 16% ABV so finos come out at around that alcohol. while Olorosos are fortified to 16-18% to prevent flor from growing. These are good things to remember when trying to differentiate between a rich caramel tasting oloroso and a tawny Port.
Ports
I don't know if I will be able to tell between a Ruby (lower quality), Reserve (higher quality), Late Bottled Vintage - LVB (high quality) and a Vintage or Single Quinta Vintage (both highest quality) Port. Honestly, I don't expect that they will pour an expensive Vintage port for the test. They exist but can be hard to come by. The LBV may show some wood characteristics, the Vintage or Single Quinta may throw some sediment in your class. Other than that I think you have to go for quality and complexity.
The tawny Ports pose an different problem. Colheita, and the various Tawnys with age are going to taste very similar AND they will have some of the same caramel, hazelnut, walnut flavors as the Oloroso sherries. (darn it). You might expect the Colheita to have a little more fruit flavor. You might expect a 20 year old Tawny ( or 30 or 40 ) to have more color. In either event, the Port will probably have a higher suggestion of alcohol than the Oloroso sherries. I generally got some alcohol burn with the Ports but not the sherries. Also, the Ports have a tawny color and the sherries have an amber color. To me, the tawny has some more of a red tint to it.
Madeira
These wines have the same tawny to brown color as the Tawny Ports. The difference that I notice is that the sugar tastes baked. That is, it doesn't taste so caramel like, it tastes more like the sugar you get in a peanut brittle or toffee. I think this comes from the fact that these wines are heated during aging and that baked flavor does come through. The other thing to notice is that Madeira ( to me at least ) don't have quite the same alcohol as a tawny port. And they have a LOT more acid than an oloroso sherry. Probably even more than the Tawny.
From a tasting sense and from a "what is this wine?" sense which in the big picture is not that important in a WSET tasting, here is my summary.
Even though it is Unit 6, it is only my 2nd exam. My first was Unit 2 - the Viticulture and Winemaking exam that has to be taken before any other. I took that in April and the next available exam was Unit 6 - Fortified Wines and so I am scheduled to take that on June 6th.
Most APPs ( Approved Program Providers ) offer an in-person course where you can taste wines that they provide, learn how they distinguish between different colors of wines ( is that a deep amber with red tints or is it a medium tawny color ), pick up on aromas, get feed back on levels of acidity, etc. You also get basic information on the Producers, Regions, and Styles of fortified wines.
Or you can self study, which is what I am doing because the course wasn't being offered at this time. I can take the test, because they are scheduled a couple of times each year by WSET Global and one can generally work with their APP to sit for a test even if they haven't taken the course. It is relatively common, I think. You can save several hundred $ by doing self study, although you will also spend a couple of hundred on buying your own wines.
So. I have been studying for about a month now. I spend probably 10-15 hours a week at it. What I like about WSET is that they are organized. They have a syllabus, they have a study guide, and they use the Ultimate textbook which is Jancis Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine. The syllabus tells you what are the general areas of study that you should know. The study guide gives you a specific list of topics that you will be tested on, And the Oxford Companion has all of the topics in encyclopedic format. One just has to read and learn them, and in some cases to relate two or three together, combine them into a larger subject area and to be prepared to write about them. the test will pick 3 topics at random out of the 150, but may word the question so that you have to combine the knowledge of 2 or 3 topics.
There are about 150 individual topics in the study guide. They are spread throughout the 800 page Oxford Companion. As part of my studies, I paraphrased each of the topics into a text document, to help learn the information ( read it once while reading it, read it a 2nd time while writing it ), but also to help my review. I now have a 27 page text document that contains all of my notes in one place ( If anybody ever reads this and wants a copy - let me know and I will e-mail it to you. I just don't want to post it, because even though it is in my own words ( mostly ) it could violate copyright.) Now when I study I can take my pages anywhere and work from topic to topic without paging through the book.
I also spent the last month tasting wines, at least the ones that I could find at Costco, Bevmo and a couple of specialty liquor stores in San Francisco. It is actually kind of hard to find a Banyuls fortified Grenache, or a Rutherglen Muscat from Australia. I will be pathetically guessing if either of these comes up on the test. However, I did make a set of tasting notes about the wines I did drink. I am going to share those here, in hopes that it can give you some additional insights when you do your own tasting.
Sherrys:
First of all, in my limited experience if you are tasting fortified wines and it is almost clear, is light, is low on acid, and has a particular taste that I recognize as fermenting bread dough, though you may also recognize it as over-ripe apples, because of the aldehydes that the flor yeast produces, then it is either a Fino or a Manzanilla. You will read that Monzanilla has a "salty tang". I believe that is true, and I think that is the way to tell them apart.
Now it gets harder.
Amontillado - one hears that many of the commercial amontillados that one finds today are not "traditional" ones that are Finos whose flor has died exposing the wine to oxidation and darkening and becoming heavier and richer. The more modern ones might be a blend of some fino and some oloroso, giving an intermediate with that has an amber color, some caramel aromas but still a little of the yeasty flavor I mentioned above. A True Amontillado should be dry - it was a fino to begin with. The more modern style may have some sweetness.
It can be hard to tell an Oloroso - especially a medium one, from a modern style Amontillado. Color will be the same, Aging will be the same. They will both probably be slightly sweet. You should be able to tell them apart because the oloroso never aged under Flor like the fino did, and shouldn't have the flavors associated with that yeast.
A Cream Sherry is always a blend. Mostly one is judging its higher level of sweetness to differentiate from other olorosos.
Almost all of the Sherries will have a light acidity and a moderate ( for a fortified wine ) alcohol. Remember flor yeast can only live between about 15% - 16% ABV so finos come out at around that alcohol. while Olorosos are fortified to 16-18% to prevent flor from growing. These are good things to remember when trying to differentiate between a rich caramel tasting oloroso and a tawny Port.
Ports
I don't know if I will be able to tell between a Ruby (lower quality), Reserve (higher quality), Late Bottled Vintage - LVB (high quality) and a Vintage or Single Quinta Vintage (both highest quality) Port. Honestly, I don't expect that they will pour an expensive Vintage port for the test. They exist but can be hard to come by. The LBV may show some wood characteristics, the Vintage or Single Quinta may throw some sediment in your class. Other than that I think you have to go for quality and complexity.
The tawny Ports pose an different problem. Colheita, and the various Tawnys with age are going to taste very similar AND they will have some of the same caramel, hazelnut, walnut flavors as the Oloroso sherries. (darn it). You might expect the Colheita to have a little more fruit flavor. You might expect a 20 year old Tawny ( or 30 or 40 ) to have more color. In either event, the Port will probably have a higher suggestion of alcohol than the Oloroso sherries. I generally got some alcohol burn with the Ports but not the sherries. Also, the Ports have a tawny color and the sherries have an amber color. To me, the tawny has some more of a red tint to it.
Madeira
These wines have the same tawny to brown color as the Tawny Ports. The difference that I notice is that the sugar tastes baked. That is, it doesn't taste so caramel like, it tastes more like the sugar you get in a peanut brittle or toffee. I think this comes from the fact that these wines are heated during aging and that baked flavor does come through. The other thing to notice is that Madeira ( to me at least ) don't have quite the same alcohol as a tawny port. And they have a LOT more acid than an oloroso sherry. Probably even more than the Tawny.
From a tasting sense and from a "what is this wine?" sense which in the big picture is not that important in a WSET tasting, here is my summary.
In General
a) Mederia has slightly higher acids. Sherry does not.
b) Port has alcohol burn. Sherry does not. Madeira does not.
c) Olorosos might be syrupy, tawny's could. Madeiras not.
d) Manzanilla does have salty overtones to yeast. fino does not.
e) Olorosos are amber. (no red ). Tawnys are tawny ( with a shade or red or brown ). Madeiras can be full brown and a Malmsey can have a brown core but broad a yellow-green(ish) rim
f) Madeiras have toffee – baked sugar. Tawnys are caramel, but not baked. Ditto Olorosos
g) Amontillados are dry (or should be). Olorosos are sweet.
Anyhow - here is where I am with a month to go. I hope this can help in your Unit 6 test prep or just thinking about fortified wines in general.
john
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Wine Location Specialist exam
I am a certification slut. I admit it. I like taking tests and finding out what I know and what I don't know. I added another test to my already full plate. I took it yesterday and am now awaiting the results.
Normally after a test I generally have a pretty good idea of how I did, this one I am not so sure.
The Wine Location Specialist Certificate is offered by the Center for Wine Origins. This organization's charter is to promote the understanding that Terroir matters and that well-known wines of quality carry a sense of place with them. In this case, the certification is concerned with mostly the Champagne and Porto appellations. The goal is to raise awareness of (generally) Americans that the use of the terms Champagne and Port are not generic descriptors for a style of wine but that they are the brands or trademarks of these specific wine-making regions and the use of these terms carries the full weight of history, tradition, and terroir with them.
Since I am currently studying fortified and Port wines and will be studying sparkling and Champagne wines for a test next January, it seemed to make sense to gather all the information that I could on these topics and attempt this test as well.
On April 13th, I signed up for the course, let them know I agreed with their cause, while not actually signing a petition to send to congress to legally restrict the uses of these terms to just their original use. ( Note: today the TTB which controls all things alcoholic, allows for the term "American Champagne" to describe sparkling wine made in the USA. Champagne producers object to the use of the name of a French region, with a considerable history of wine-making, to describe a style of wine made in the USA ). I then received a PDF file which would be the reference for the test. I also found that I would be taking the test on May 6th - just 3 weeks away, and on May 7th I would be taking my DAPS test for Fortified Wines. It has been an interesting 3 weeks.
The file is a little tricky to work with. It is well done and very attractive but it is 2 pages wide on the screen and in several cases 1/2 half of the page is a picture of somewhere in Champagne or the Douro Valley. You have to scroll back and forth across the page to make sure you got all the text before actually scrolling down to the next two pages. It is awkward to work with. It is also over 100 pages long ( 57 pages of 2 page text ). It was written by a Master of Wine, and I assume reviewed by the Champagne and Porto groups as how they wanted to be presented. As is with any of these type of tests, the reference is the Bible. Its statements are considered gospel.
I read the document twice, leeched out those facts that I thought would be good test questions and wrote my own 7 page synopsis of key facts. This became my study sheet. I thought I was ready for the test, but now I am not so sure.
The test was 2 part. A 50 question multiple-guess first part, and an Essay 2nd part. I treated it as a closed-book test, though nobody actually said anything one way or the other. I also think that if one had to look up the answers, one wouldn't have finished the test in the time limit anyway. The test is taken on-line and had a 1 hour time limit. Each question is on 1 page and you can't go back after a question is answered. This made it a little awkward. I have a slow DSL connection ( thank you ATT ) and I htink the server may have been overworked today because I waited what seemed like a long time for a couple of the questions to come up, and in one case I may have hit next question button twice in frustration and I might have totally skipped over one question as a result.
An then there were questions that I just had a hard time with. One question in particular jarred me. It went something like this: "In the spring season photosynthesis creates new sugars for the plant which are stored ..." a) in the roots, b) in the leaves, c) in the stem, d) someplace else. ". Well, in the Fall the sugars are stored in the permanent wood of the wine. In the Spring the sugars go into producing cellulose and other materials for new growth. the answer according to the reference is "in the roots" - which just isn't true. Being the way that I am, I knew the answer they wanted, but just couldn't bring myself to mark that one on the test. So I said in the stem - i.e. new shoots.
There were several question where I just did not like their choices of answers or in a couple of cases the questions themselves. Unfortunately passing for this test requires getting 40 out of the 50 questions correct.
I am hoping that in those cases other than where I obstinately put what I thought was the correct answer verses putting the answer that I think they wanted, that statistical odds would allow me to get at least a couple of them right and allow me to pass that part of the test.
I felt OK with the essay part. It had to do with the background history and reasons why appellations were created in the first place and what the appellation rules regulated. A maximum of 500 words were allowed and this section was not separate from the first part. You had 1 hour total for both parts of the test, however much time you took on either part. I started part 2 ( the 51st question ) with about 32 minutes to go. I had set the countdown time on my phone so I would know how much time I had left, except that it kept going to sleep after a couple of minutes and I had to turn it back on to see how much time was remaining.
I answered the question with somewhere around 300 words, I think. At this time I turned back to my phone to see how much time I had left to review my work or make revisions, etc. I don't remember what the phone said because as it was coming up, the screen flashed, and a note came up that read "Your test has been submitted". Huh ? Either I clicked something with my mouse, which I have been known to do if I am web-surfing and falling asleep at the wheel, or the page had a timer that decided that my hour had passed and that I was done. I assumed it was the later and that in this case, I was done no matter what.
So now I wait. I am told that the results will be available within a month.
Now ... even though I had some problems with the test, I liked the course and thought it worth while. The reference material is a good read. The topics are interesting and you learn things about Champagne and the Douro Valley that you might not find elsewhere. I also support and understand their desire to protect the "branding" of those two famous wine regions.
Check it out at the Wine Origins Website
john
Normally after a test I generally have a pretty good idea of how I did, this one I am not so sure.
The Wine Location Specialist Certificate is offered by the Center for Wine Origins. This organization's charter is to promote the understanding that Terroir matters and that well-known wines of quality carry a sense of place with them. In this case, the certification is concerned with mostly the Champagne and Porto appellations. The goal is to raise awareness of (generally) Americans that the use of the terms Champagne and Port are not generic descriptors for a style of wine but that they are the brands or trademarks of these specific wine-making regions and the use of these terms carries the full weight of history, tradition, and terroir with them.
Since I am currently studying fortified and Port wines and will be studying sparkling and Champagne wines for a test next January, it seemed to make sense to gather all the information that I could on these topics and attempt this test as well.
On April 13th, I signed up for the course, let them know I agreed with their cause, while not actually signing a petition to send to congress to legally restrict the uses of these terms to just their original use. ( Note: today the TTB which controls all things alcoholic, allows for the term "American Champagne" to describe sparkling wine made in the USA. Champagne producers object to the use of the name of a French region, with a considerable history of wine-making, to describe a style of wine made in the USA ). I then received a PDF file which would be the reference for the test. I also found that I would be taking the test on May 6th - just 3 weeks away, and on May 7th I would be taking my DAPS test for Fortified Wines. It has been an interesting 3 weeks.
The file is a little tricky to work with. It is well done and very attractive but it is 2 pages wide on the screen and in several cases 1/2 half of the page is a picture of somewhere in Champagne or the Douro Valley. You have to scroll back and forth across the page to make sure you got all the text before actually scrolling down to the next two pages. It is awkward to work with. It is also over 100 pages long ( 57 pages of 2 page text ). It was written by a Master of Wine, and I assume reviewed by the Champagne and Porto groups as how they wanted to be presented. As is with any of these type of tests, the reference is the Bible. Its statements are considered gospel.
I read the document twice, leeched out those facts that I thought would be good test questions and wrote my own 7 page synopsis of key facts. This became my study sheet. I thought I was ready for the test, but now I am not so sure.
The test was 2 part. A 50 question multiple-guess first part, and an Essay 2nd part. I treated it as a closed-book test, though nobody actually said anything one way or the other. I also think that if one had to look up the answers, one wouldn't have finished the test in the time limit anyway. The test is taken on-line and had a 1 hour time limit. Each question is on 1 page and you can't go back after a question is answered. This made it a little awkward. I have a slow DSL connection ( thank you ATT ) and I htink the server may have been overworked today because I waited what seemed like a long time for a couple of the questions to come up, and in one case I may have hit next question button twice in frustration and I might have totally skipped over one question as a result.
An then there were questions that I just had a hard time with. One question in particular jarred me. It went something like this: "In the spring season photosynthesis creates new sugars for the plant which are stored ..." a) in the roots, b) in the leaves, c) in the stem, d) someplace else. ". Well, in the Fall the sugars are stored in the permanent wood of the wine. In the Spring the sugars go into producing cellulose and other materials for new growth. the answer according to the reference is "in the roots" - which just isn't true. Being the way that I am, I knew the answer they wanted, but just couldn't bring myself to mark that one on the test. So I said in the stem - i.e. new shoots.
There were several question where I just did not like their choices of answers or in a couple of cases the questions themselves. Unfortunately passing for this test requires getting 40 out of the 50 questions correct.
I am hoping that in those cases other than where I obstinately put what I thought was the correct answer verses putting the answer that I think they wanted, that statistical odds would allow me to get at least a couple of them right and allow me to pass that part of the test.
I felt OK with the essay part. It had to do with the background history and reasons why appellations were created in the first place and what the appellation rules regulated. A maximum of 500 words were allowed and this section was not separate from the first part. You had 1 hour total for both parts of the test, however much time you took on either part. I started part 2 ( the 51st question ) with about 32 minutes to go. I had set the countdown time on my phone so I would know how much time I had left, except that it kept going to sleep after a couple of minutes and I had to turn it back on to see how much time was remaining.
I answered the question with somewhere around 300 words, I think. At this time I turned back to my phone to see how much time I had left to review my work or make revisions, etc. I don't remember what the phone said because as it was coming up, the screen flashed, and a note came up that read "Your test has been submitted". Huh ? Either I clicked something with my mouse, which I have been known to do if I am web-surfing and falling asleep at the wheel, or the page had a timer that decided that my hour had passed and that I was done. I assumed it was the later and that in this case, I was done no matter what.
So now I wait. I am told that the results will be available within a month.
Now ... even though I had some problems with the test, I liked the course and thought it worth while. The reference material is a good read. The topics are interesting and you learn things about Champagne and the Douro Valley that you might not find elsewhere. I also support and understand their desire to protect the "branding" of those two famous wine regions.
Check it out at the Wine Origins Website
john
DAPS: Diploma Assessment Preparation Scheme
Today I took my first DAPS test. It was for my Unit 6 - Fortified Wines Course. Here's how it works.
The Diploma Assessment Preparation Scheme (DAPS) allows the student to take a sample test that is reviewed by one of WSET's examiners. This gives the student an idea of how the test is conducted, how to manage their time and an idea of how it will be graded. My Program Provider believes in them and I have to agree that they are helpful and in the long run probably worth the $50 that each one costs.
The Unit 6 test that I took today consisted of tasting and writing reports on 3 fortified wines and then writing paragraphs on 3 randomly selected topics from the Unit 6 syllabus. Each section is allowed 30 minutes, so the total test takes 1 hour.
For the tasting section WSET supplies a list of the 3 wines to be tasted, and recommends that you have a friend down load the list, make the purchase and pour out the wines for you. In my case the list recommended a Port, A Sherry, and one other wine from the syllabus. My wife picked out a LBV Port, an Amontillado, and a Madeira 5 year old Verdelho. I had to blind taste them, describe them, comment on the quality and state which country I thought they were from. I didn't have to guess the type of wine - which by the way if you have never tried it, is not that easy. I confused the Amontillado with a Oloroso Sherry - which when I re-tasted them side by side, I realized was a rookie mistake because the Amontillado is drier, though both have some caramel flavors, and in truth, many of the less expensive commercial Amontillados are probably a blend of styles anyway.
What was more important however, is that I learned that I take too long in pondering and judging these wines. I had only 10 minutes per wine, and while that sounds like a lot of time, when you have about 20 items that you have to judge the wine on as well as write a coherent tasting note for each of them, you realize that you have to evaluate, and write your answer and not spend a lot of time looking or sniffing and thinking. When I took my Advanced tasting test, we only had 2 wines, I was prepared and it still took me 15 minutes for each wine and I had only just put my pencil down when time ran out.
Today the time ran out while I was still working on my 3rd wine. I left at least 15 points on the table and with probably errors on the first two wines, that would probably guarantee a fail or only a near pass. One of the tricky thngs to this test, is that you have to memorize all of the tasting items that you need to judge against. Four to five years ago, all of the items were listed and the range of descriptors were printed and one only needed to circle your choices. Now you need to memorize the items and the descriptors. When you are rushed and panicky it is easy to lose a point simply because you forgot to include an item. But for me, it is a matter of running out of time because I needed to think about what a particular flavor is.
The best technique, I think, is to learn the common descriptors for the wines you will be tasting. For fortified wines, I know that Sherries will have some yeast, bread dough, perhaps nuttiness, e.g. almonds or hazel-nuts. They may have some caramel if it is an oxidized Sherry. A Madeira will show more baked sugar / toffee flavors. Ports will generally show black fruit if a Ruby, LBV, or Vintage or various caramel flavors if a Tawny or Colheita. Having some of the basic, usual terms at the tip-of-your-tongue, so to speak, can save you some time in thinking about what are the flavors / aromas you are tasting.
So anyhow. My test is 1 month away and I still need work in this area.
The 2nd half of my test was to write a paragraph on each of 3 different topics. 30 minutes were allocated for this giving about 10 minutes per topic. I still have a lot of studying to do, but I felt pretty good about this part of the test. The random topics were: "Gonzalez Byass" ( a Sherry Shipper ), Grenache Noir ( used in Vin Doux Naturals in France ) and "Late Bottled Vintage Ports" ( and how they aid the consumer ).
We know in advance the list of possible topics for the test. there are maybe 140 of them, and we know the reference for each of these topics, because all the test questions will be based on information in Jancis Robinson's "Oxford Companion to Wine". The problem is some topics in O.C.W are several pages long of very small print !
On Gonzalez Byass, I knew the basic story but screwed up several dates of events that journaled the company's growth. I also forgot to mention that they sold not just Sherry but also a Cava and I think either a red wine or Port from the Douro.
On the late bottled Vintage question, while I did a great job explaining LBV Ports and how they were made and that they did not age after bottling nor last long after opening I forgot to mention that they actually helped the consumer because like vintage ports which MUST be aged by the consumer, an LBV is ready to drink when released. Since that was the basis for the question, it might have been fatal to not actually mention it, though I did in a round-about way.
For the last 6 weeks or so, I have been extracting and copying notes out of Robinson's 800 page book so that I could focus on just those topics that were on the syllabus. I have 27 pages of notes and I am not done yet. I need to finish them and then spend the next month studying them. I also have to practice writing tasting notes so that I can get them done in under 10 minutes.
It will be a busy, intense, month.
john
The Diploma Assessment Preparation Scheme (DAPS) allows the student to take a sample test that is reviewed by one of WSET's examiners. This gives the student an idea of how the test is conducted, how to manage their time and an idea of how it will be graded. My Program Provider believes in them and I have to agree that they are helpful and in the long run probably worth the $50 that each one costs.
The Unit 6 test that I took today consisted of tasting and writing reports on 3 fortified wines and then writing paragraphs on 3 randomly selected topics from the Unit 6 syllabus. Each section is allowed 30 minutes, so the total test takes 1 hour.
For the tasting section WSET supplies a list of the 3 wines to be tasted, and recommends that you have a friend down load the list, make the purchase and pour out the wines for you. In my case the list recommended a Port, A Sherry, and one other wine from the syllabus. My wife picked out a LBV Port, an Amontillado, and a Madeira 5 year old Verdelho. I had to blind taste them, describe them, comment on the quality and state which country I thought they were from. I didn't have to guess the type of wine - which by the way if you have never tried it, is not that easy. I confused the Amontillado with a Oloroso Sherry - which when I re-tasted them side by side, I realized was a rookie mistake because the Amontillado is drier, though both have some caramel flavors, and in truth, many of the less expensive commercial Amontillados are probably a blend of styles anyway.
What was more important however, is that I learned that I take too long in pondering and judging these wines. I had only 10 minutes per wine, and while that sounds like a lot of time, when you have about 20 items that you have to judge the wine on as well as write a coherent tasting note for each of them, you realize that you have to evaluate, and write your answer and not spend a lot of time looking or sniffing and thinking. When I took my Advanced tasting test, we only had 2 wines, I was prepared and it still took me 15 minutes for each wine and I had only just put my pencil down when time ran out.
Today the time ran out while I was still working on my 3rd wine. I left at least 15 points on the table and with probably errors on the first two wines, that would probably guarantee a fail or only a near pass. One of the tricky thngs to this test, is that you have to memorize all of the tasting items that you need to judge against. Four to five years ago, all of the items were listed and the range of descriptors were printed and one only needed to circle your choices. Now you need to memorize the items and the descriptors. When you are rushed and panicky it is easy to lose a point simply because you forgot to include an item. But for me, it is a matter of running out of time because I needed to think about what a particular flavor is.
The best technique, I think, is to learn the common descriptors for the wines you will be tasting. For fortified wines, I know that Sherries will have some yeast, bread dough, perhaps nuttiness, e.g. almonds or hazel-nuts. They may have some caramel if it is an oxidized Sherry. A Madeira will show more baked sugar / toffee flavors. Ports will generally show black fruit if a Ruby, LBV, or Vintage or various caramel flavors if a Tawny or Colheita. Having some of the basic, usual terms at the tip-of-your-tongue, so to speak, can save you some time in thinking about what are the flavors / aromas you are tasting.
So anyhow. My test is 1 month away and I still need work in this area.
The 2nd half of my test was to write a paragraph on each of 3 different topics. 30 minutes were allocated for this giving about 10 minutes per topic. I still have a lot of studying to do, but I felt pretty good about this part of the test. The random topics were: "Gonzalez Byass" ( a Sherry Shipper ), Grenache Noir ( used in Vin Doux Naturals in France ) and "Late Bottled Vintage Ports" ( and how they aid the consumer ).
We know in advance the list of possible topics for the test. there are maybe 140 of them, and we know the reference for each of these topics, because all the test questions will be based on information in Jancis Robinson's "Oxford Companion to Wine". The problem is some topics in O.C.W are several pages long of very small print !
On Gonzalez Byass, I knew the basic story but screwed up several dates of events that journaled the company's growth. I also forgot to mention that they sold not just Sherry but also a Cava and I think either a red wine or Port from the Douro.
On the late bottled Vintage question, while I did a great job explaining LBV Ports and how they were made and that they did not age after bottling nor last long after opening I forgot to mention that they actually helped the consumer because like vintage ports which MUST be aged by the consumer, an LBV is ready to drink when released. Since that was the basis for the question, it might have been fatal to not actually mention it, though I did in a round-about way.
For the last 6 weeks or so, I have been extracting and copying notes out of Robinson's 800 page book so that I could focus on just those topics that were on the syllabus. I have 27 pages of notes and I am not done yet. I need to finish them and then spend the next month studying them. I also have to practice writing tasting notes so that I can get them done in under 10 minutes.
It will be a busy, intense, month.
john
Sunday, May 1, 2011
New Zealand Wine Discovery
Yesterday was the New Zealand Wine Discovery held in San Francisco at the Intercontinental Hotel and sponsored by KGO Radio and supporting the Christchurch NZ Earthquake fund. Cost was $35. I arrived at about 2 PM after it had been running for an hour. I missed Gene Burns who was broadcasting his "Dining Around" radio show from the event and I wanted to tell him I was glad he was back and hoped he was doing well.
I estimated that at any one time there were about 100 people in the 2 rooms of the event. So I assume that overall there were more. There was some food, chocolate and cheese available which I mostly avoided since I was "tasting". I also think that i was one of the few who was actually spitting - it was more of a drinking crowd. This gets interesting because like many tasting rooms, people are crowded around the table - and the spit bucket. So when you don't want to swallow you have to work your way through the crowd to get to the bucket. Then you have to move them out of the way of any splashes and also protect the water pitcher. All this without being able to talk. This really works better when the buckets are in the middle of the floor rather than at the serving tables.
There were 20 wineries pouring about 90 wines, mostly Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir, however with some Pinot gris, Chardonnay, a Gewürztraminer and even a Tempranillo thrown in.
I didn't taste every wine - a few wineries were pouring 7-8 wines and my program with them was to ask them to pour the top 3 wines that the pourer liked.
In general, my taste tends towards Sauv. blancs with some citric and a touch of zest to them. I like my Pinots with good fruit, low tannins, and some earthy complexity. I found several wines that I liked, a number that I didn't care for, and some on which I am not so sure ... I am sensitive to bitter tannins, and if I get one, it can throw off my taste buds for any even slightly tannic wine that follows. This happened, and so a few of the Pinots that i downgraded for harshness might have been better liked if I had tasted them in a different order.
I can say that I wasn't impressed with any of the Chardonnays or especially the attempts at Pinot gris. the Pinot gris were totally neutral with no character and the Chardonnays ( that I tasted ) tended to be over oaked. Now I am OK with oakey Chardonnays. I think Rombauer is awesome and Kendall-Jackson was better than good. I just didn't relate to what these winemakers were trying to do.
Here are some of the ones I liked and some I wouldn't go near again at least for this vintage.
I liked:
Kim Crawford Sauvignon blanc - Marlborough 2010 ($16.99) ++ aroma and taste
The Crossings Awatere Valley Sauvignon blanc Marlborough 2010 ($15.95) ++ aroma and a slight citric
spritz that added to it.
Matua Valley Regional Sauvignon blanc Marlborough 2010 ($12.00) ( Matua valley also had an estate SB
for $22 - my notes say I liked the Estate by my brain remembers the Regional as being much nicer )
Sileni Estates cellar selection Sauv blanc Marlborough 2010 ($n/a) - very bright with a long finish.
Babich Pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($18.00) + aroma and taste
Kim Crawford Pinot noir Marlborough 2009 ($17.99) + aroma and taste
Wairu River pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($20) - classic profile with a little smokiness. slight tannic edge.
I didn't like
Babich Headwaters Organic Sauv blanc 2009 ($20). Didn't taste like a Sauv blanc.
Mt Beautiful Pinot noir North Canterbury 2009 ($23) neutral flavors and tannic burn.
Rock Ferry Wines - i tasted Sauv blanc, Viognier, and Tempranillo and wasn't excited about any of them.
Sileni Cellar Chardonnay Hawkes Bay 2010 ($n/a) - un-integrated oak.
Whitehaven Pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($25) - tannic
Other wineries poured good, generally unremarkable wines. I was a little surprised at the lack of Merlots or Cabernets for which several areas on the North Island have a good reputation. I was also surprised at the lack of good Chardonnays. For several years in the late 1990s NZ Chardonnay was my favorite. Nothing from this (admittedly small) group of producers interested me.
Summary: This was a nice venue, not too crowded. Several producers showed why NZ Sauvignon blancs and Pint noirs are well regarded. There were more wines that I liked or though were OK than ones that I didn't like. The cost was reasonable. It was worth doing once. I probably won't go again.
john
I estimated that at any one time there were about 100 people in the 2 rooms of the event. So I assume that overall there were more. There was some food, chocolate and cheese available which I mostly avoided since I was "tasting". I also think that i was one of the few who was actually spitting - it was more of a drinking crowd. This gets interesting because like many tasting rooms, people are crowded around the table - and the spit bucket. So when you don't want to swallow you have to work your way through the crowd to get to the bucket. Then you have to move them out of the way of any splashes and also protect the water pitcher. All this without being able to talk. This really works better when the buckets are in the middle of the floor rather than at the serving tables.
There were 20 wineries pouring about 90 wines, mostly Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir, however with some Pinot gris, Chardonnay, a Gewürztraminer and even a Tempranillo thrown in.
I didn't taste every wine - a few wineries were pouring 7-8 wines and my program with them was to ask them to pour the top 3 wines that the pourer liked.
In general, my taste tends towards Sauv. blancs with some citric and a touch of zest to them. I like my Pinots with good fruit, low tannins, and some earthy complexity. I found several wines that I liked, a number that I didn't care for, and some on which I am not so sure ... I am sensitive to bitter tannins, and if I get one, it can throw off my taste buds for any even slightly tannic wine that follows. This happened, and so a few of the Pinots that i downgraded for harshness might have been better liked if I had tasted them in a different order.
I can say that I wasn't impressed with any of the Chardonnays or especially the attempts at Pinot gris. the Pinot gris were totally neutral with no character and the Chardonnays ( that I tasted ) tended to be over oaked. Now I am OK with oakey Chardonnays. I think Rombauer is awesome and Kendall-Jackson was better than good. I just didn't relate to what these winemakers were trying to do.
Here are some of the ones I liked and some I wouldn't go near again at least for this vintage.
I liked:
Kim Crawford Sauvignon blanc - Marlborough 2010 ($16.99) ++ aroma and taste
The Crossings Awatere Valley Sauvignon blanc Marlborough 2010 ($15.95) ++ aroma and a slight citric
spritz that added to it.
Matua Valley Regional Sauvignon blanc Marlborough 2010 ($12.00) ( Matua valley also had an estate SB
for $22 - my notes say I liked the Estate by my brain remembers the Regional as being much nicer )
Sileni Estates cellar selection Sauv blanc Marlborough 2010 ($n/a) - very bright with a long finish.
Babich Pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($18.00) + aroma and taste
Kim Crawford Pinot noir Marlborough 2009 ($17.99) + aroma and taste
Wairu River pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($20) - classic profile with a little smokiness. slight tannic edge.
I didn't like
Babich Headwaters Organic Sauv blanc 2009 ($20). Didn't taste like a Sauv blanc.
Mt Beautiful Pinot noir North Canterbury 2009 ($23) neutral flavors and tannic burn.
Rock Ferry Wines - i tasted Sauv blanc, Viognier, and Tempranillo and wasn't excited about any of them.
Sileni Cellar Chardonnay Hawkes Bay 2010 ($n/a) - un-integrated oak.
Whitehaven Pinot noir Marlborough 2008 ($25) - tannic
Other wineries poured good, generally unremarkable wines. I was a little surprised at the lack of Merlots or Cabernets for which several areas on the North Island have a good reputation. I was also surprised at the lack of good Chardonnays. For several years in the late 1990s NZ Chardonnay was my favorite. Nothing from this (admittedly small) group of producers interested me.
Summary: This was a nice venue, not too crowded. Several producers showed why NZ Sauvignon blancs and Pint noirs are well regarded. There were more wines that I liked or though were OK than ones that I didn't like. The cost was reasonable. It was worth doing once. I probably won't go again.
john
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