2012 - Current Plans

It is embarrassing not to have written since mid-November but not much has happened in my wine world and in family life I had grandson's birthday, a large Thanksgiving party, Christmas, etc. So here I am in early January and here is what's happening.

I have been helping and observing at a WSET Advanced class in western San Francisco (1.5 hour commute each way) since early November. The 16 week course continues through February and I am using it to keep current on Wines of the World (WSET-Unit 3) type information and to further calibrate my palate. For example, a constant theme that I hear Adam Chase make is that "One needs to prove that a white wine is not 'youthful. and a red wine is not 'developing'.". Now maybe this is focused mainly at advanced level students but probably holds for wine descriptions in general.

I have only tried 2 bottles of aged Savennieres Chenin blanc in my life and they have both been corked.

There is a tasting group in eastern San Francisco (1 hr commute each way ) that i attended 1 tasting with and would like to attend more but I just need to find something closer. i think I just need to get the word out and wait and a group can grow here in the East Bay. At least i hope so.

As part of my AWS - Wine Judge Certification training, I need to act in some capacity in 2 wine competitions each year. Fortunately there are a fair number here in Northern California, I just have to work to get my name on a list of associate / trainee / non-scoring judges for all the events that I can think of and see how things fall into place. So I have started making a pest of myself with all the competitions and coordinators that I can find.

So here are my 2012 plans at least for the first 6 months:

1) I think I passed my WSET-Unit 6 fortified wines exam. So now I am starting Unit 4 - Spirits / hard liquor. Exam is in June. The text book is David Brooms "Distilling Knowledge" which is actually a pretty good read.

2) I am quite sure I passed my WSET Unit-1 Research Work Paper. I did good research and am reasonably articulate when I put my mind to it. So in mid-February I will start research for the closed book Case Study exam which means writing another paper in formal exam conditions. This happens in March.

3) I am presenting a class on Fortified Wines to my AWS Chapter. Condensing 6 months of research and tasting into a 2 hour powerpoint session. Doesn't seem right. But on the other hand it is my rookie attempt at becoming a "wine educator". I bought a projector (really nice Epson EX3210 on sale at Staples. Saved $100) and built up a slide deck on Fortifieds that I assume I will use and revise over time.

4) I am still working on a way to start teaching "French Wine Scholar". It is a good course and I need to pull the logistics together to make this work.

5) In August the Society of Wine Educators (SWE) is holding their National Conference near San Jose California. Wahoo ! Only about an hour away. Don't need to fly anywhere. I will attempt my Certified Wine Educator exam at that time, but really need to focus on Italian wines for next 6 months to get solid on them. Feel OK about France, but Italy is in ways much more complex or at least unknown to me.

6) May attempt SWE - Certified Specialist in Spirits exam since I am already studying spirits for WSET and figure that the two tests can't be that far apart. Problem is that it is probably another $300-$400 cost to take the test and since I am living on savings and retirement pension and still too young for Social Security, I have to at least consider where the money is going. Wifey beginning to make remarks about me getting another job because I complain of how poor we are when stock market declines.

7) I met with California Alcohol Beverage Control to see what it takes to be legal to serve wine whilst running a wine school. That deserves a whole blog in its own right. Stay tuned.

8) While I was back in New York for the AWS conference and WJCP exam, it became VERY obvious to me that there were many Native North American and French Hybrid wines that I had never tasted or heard of. I know I will need to get more familiar with them if i hope to pass my Year 2 / 3 WJCP exams. I spent a day traveling the Finger Lakes region of New York to taste as many as I could. I need to find more and to keep this up.

All this on top of tasting Whisk(e)ys, gins, tequilas, rums, vodkas, etc for Unit 4 and Italian wines for CWE exam.

So this is where my efforts and future blogs will be focused. I hope they are interesting.

john