As I mentioned earlier this year I’ve been taking a wine course at a local college as part of a bigger plan to get my WSET Level 3 certification. I was worried about the jump from WSET level 2 to level 3 so I’ve been taking this other course to help fill some knowledge gaps and get practice on blind tasting, something I still find quite intimidating.
Since September I’ve been spending my Tuesday evenings in a classroom, writing notes about soil and climate and trying my best not to embarrass myself during tastings. This week was the final exam and though I really enjoyed it, the course really kicked my butt.
I know, what a weird statement. It’s just wine, right? How hard can it be??
Tasting is a Game of Persistence and Practice
I was nervous for the blind tasting part of this course. In fact, the exercise of tasting wines blind and trying to identify them was my entire reason for taking this course and not just plowing through to WSET level 3. I can now proudly say that I don’t think I completely suck at tasting, but does that mean I have a good track record for correctly identifying wines?
That’s cute.
No, correctly identifying wines from a few whiffs and sips is still incredibly challenging. I am getting better at it though, and feel confident enough to continue with the plan to take a WSET level 3 course over the next few months, so silver linings and all that.
Italy, my Everest
Italy is hard, you guys. Like, really hard. Much more difficult to figure out than France, which I attribute to a few key reasons:
- You know how France has a bunch of regions and you’re just supposed to know the grapes used in that region when buying a bottle? Italy is like that, only with a bajillion more regions and often a few different kinds of ‘typical’ wines in each region. It’s a ridiculously large amount of information to learn in the span of a few weeks.
- Also like France, the Italian wine industry is old and famous and well-loved and has pretty strict rules, which means the delicious stuff tends to be out of my price range. Amarones and Barolos will continue to be wines I gaze at longingly on store shelves for the foreseeable future.
- On top of the cost (or maybe because of the cost) I don’t drink Italian wine much, which means my taste tends toward others things, which means that my palate is so far out of its depth with Italian wine that tasting these wines blind becomes a bit of a joke.
Clearly I have some remedial studying to do…
The (New) World is my Oyster
Fortunately, where I floundered with Italy, I flourished with the new world. Maybe it’s because the labels are more helpful, or because the wines are more affordable (and therefore my palate is more familiar with them), or because I happen to live near a fantastic wine region. Whatever the reason, I had a much easier time learning about wines from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, America and Canada.
To give some perspective, where my tasting notes were sadly sparse and I correctly identified zero of three wines on my Italy test, on my new world test my tasting notes were much more detailed and I correctly identified all four varietals and three of four regions. Totally vindicated!
Onward and Upward
So Wines II at George Brown College is done and dusted. I should get my marks back in a few weeks but I feel confident in my knowledge and tasting ability, which was the whole point of taking the course. I finally feel ready to tackle WSET Level 3, which is good because I start in January.
Have you ever thought about taking a wine course?
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[…] and 2 blind tastings – one white and one red) but am still waiting for my confidence to show. I had a similar problem with the last class I took – it wasn’t until the last few weeks of class that I finally started feeling like ‘hey, I […]