Wine courses

[Lucrezia]

I would like to do a wine course, on how to decant, taste and appreciate wine. Not one of those lenghty sommelier courses but more like a 1 days workshop on the subject. Any suggestions, tried and tested, or at least word of mouth? Ideally in central London

Tx

[CheGuevara]

i looked into this a while ago - maybe andy can pull my thread from somewhere, it had some good suggestions, which unfortunately i never got around to trying.

edit: this was the one i was going to go for: Wine Education

let me know if you decide to go - maybe some egullet motivation is what i need.

-che

Edited May 30, 2003 by CheGuevara (log)

[StephenT]

I did the introductory course from the Wine Education Service. It was good fun with a wide variety of wines but I didn't learn a huge amount - it was basically a whistle-stop tour of the world of wine. To be expected in an introductory course though. I attended it half in Holborn and half in Notting Hill - they're quite flexible.

Wasn't a one-day course though; it was 10 evenings over 10 weeks. And there wasn't any decanting.

Edit: My comments above might make it sound like there wasn't much content in the course but there was. Apart from tasting, there was also quite a bit about the regions and their legislation, how wine is made and the grapes are grown, etc... just that I'd read about most of it before.

Edited May 30, 2003 by StephenT (log)

[Andy Lynes]

There is a thread on this somewhere which I will try and located if the eGullet search engine feels co-operative today.

I am considering organising an event at the Hotel Du Vin in Brighton which will be a meal and tutored wine tasting, so if it goes ahead and you are interested in attending we could get them to talk about decanting.

[Lucrezia]

Thank you very much for the leads. I have also contacted the Wine & Spirit Education trust, and they should send me a prospectus with all the info and forthcomings workshops. I will keep you posted

Txx

[Gary Marshall]

as alluded to in an earlier thread, i have now finished (and passed, but then i always was a girly swot ) the second stage of the wset course, so i can share a few thoughts now .

Firstly it does seem if i got quite a bargain, the course i think cost £160 it appears to be about twice this in london, and the wines were much more interesting in comparison to the first course, this is not all down to the generosity of micheal hjort at meltons, as the teaching guide specifies what should be served eg on the champagne night a basic nv, and a quality vintage, on the bordeaux night we had a rauzan segla that was £80 on the wine list so that was more interesting.

the syllabus is also is much more detailed, with more emphasis on viticulture and vinification, and the specific regions of the world were taught in much more depth, personally once we deviated from vini & vinif, france, italy and champagne i quickly got bored but that's just my personal wine prejudices, i couldn't face spending a monday night drinking and learning about eatern european wines for example!

many of the people on the course hadn't done the first one so its not a pre-requisite, the exam was all multiple choice and although not difficult the syllabus was wide, you either knew it or you didn't and there was a short written question in which you had to describe the colour, taste, smell etc of either a meursault or a chianti classico.

if you've got more than a passing interest in wine then i'd recommend it, be afraid of sommeliers no more!

cheers

gary

[dallardice]

I can also offer my feedback after having attended and enjoyed Michael Schuster's introductory course.

The course is held in the basement of his house in Islington and about 20 people attended over 6 evenings. The course is very much tailored to enjoying wine and the tone is enthusiastic rather than academic, although Michael clearly has a lot of knowledge behind his conversational tone.

The course is arranged thematically, with the first night concentrated on simple tastes like acid, sugar, salt and so on. From then each night concentrates on a region, with subsidiary topics like decanting, storage, and so on.

The wines tasted average about £5-10, mostly from supermarkets, with a few from the Wine Society (on whose board Michael sits, a fact he was at pains to point out each time the Society's name came up). Normally up to 3 wines were tasted concurrently, with around six a night, so that we could compare different styles or different ages of similar wines. A healthy contempt for wine marketing, and genuine enthusiasm for some more off-beat wines, made it a set of very enjoyable evenings.

No tests (not even multiple choice ones), and, as I said in my previous thread, not the way to start a formal wine education, but thoroughly recommended for helping you understand why you like certain types of wine, and how to better analyse what you're tasting. We plan to attend the French fine wines course when our timetables permit, probably next year.

Edited June 2, 2003 by dallardice (log)