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:

• 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.

Generally it is a little tricky to tell the Amontillados, from the Madeiras, from the Tawnys in terms of color. They are all clear and amber to tawny in color, another reason for 'blind' tasting, but the aromas and the mouth are what differentiate them.

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