Wine Appreciation Classes

Amidst all of these wonderful behind the scenes opportunities were the afternoon tastings of wines from all over the world at the Institute itself.  I thought I had died and gone to heaven the day we did the Burgundy flight.  I know some people will tell you that Burgundian Pinots are overrated – don’t believe them.  When they are good they are hard to beat.  I was mesmerized by these wines and their complexity and unbelievable finishes.  But rare for me was the opportunity to taste Madera, Sherry and Port in most of styles in which they can be found side by side. I never would open that much expensive wine together at one time.

But the true highlight had to be the chance to have Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser as a tasting coach for a week.  Up to this point I could identify scents and flavor profiles in wines and had a pretty good feel for quality, but taking it home to what was the wine, where was it from and how old it was became so much clearer after a week of working with his step by step approach.  Up until working with Tim I thought that without years and years of tasting wine I would never be able to confidently do that type of identification by myself consistently.  He was able to take the entire class to the point where they understood how to identify a wine by using queues from the wine that you might otherwise overlook.   You still need to know something about which wine profiles to look for so you know what queues should be in which wines, but with that information and practice you can find yourself accurately identifying wines in blind tastings with some consistency.  You will at least find yourself able to identify age, varietal groups, cold grape source versus warm, and old world versus new world.  There is no substitute for experience, but this will shorten the learning curve significantly. 

Another one of the classes that I found exceptional was the California and Northwest Intensive where we studied wines from the West Coast of the United States.  The class was taught by Bruce Cass, considered one of the foremost experts on this area of wine country.  Bruce  was one of the few people I met that had actually spent a significant amount of time in the Sierra Foothills and understood the potential of that wine region.  That of course made the class special for me, but his broad knowledge of the California, Oregon and Washington wine regions and how to identify the differences in a tasting made that so much clearer for me and broadened my horizons significantly beyond Napa, Sonoma and the Foothills. 

So in closing, what will wine classes give you that you can’t get by just drinking a lot of wine? In the right class you will:

• Learn the subtleties that make a specific wine great and not just good.
• Get tips on what wines to serve with which foods, or conversely which foods to serve with that special wine.
• Have an opportunity to learn tips and tricks from people who have been in the industry for years. 
• Learn about the wine regions of the world and what flavor and style profiles you should expect from each.
• Gain access to wines you may not be able to obtain on your own.
• Learn to make your own wine decisions based on your palate, not someone else’s. 
• Learn how to confidently suggest wines to other people based on their likes and dislikes.
• Learn how to train your nose and palate so that you can actually smell that hint of mango in with the baked apples.
• Take the opportunity to meet other people with similar interests and make connections you can’t make on your own.

This is meant to give you some background on what you can expect from wine classes and my experiences not to recommend you take specific classes from specific institutions.  There are institutes around the country who offer their own version of these classes and I recommend you look around and see which fits your needs the best before spending the considerable amount of money these classes can cost.  I would also suggest acquiring as many books as possible by multiple authors so that you can gain different prospectives on wines and regions.  Don’t make the mistake of letting other people tell you what you should like, use their input, but make your own decisions.

Good luck with your own wine odyssey and hope we see you in wine country soon.