World of Wine
Cost: £219 for an eight week exploration of the world's prime regions.
Dates: Tuesday evenings from 27th September to 15th November, 19.30 - 21.30.
Bookings: in advance please, to Colin sales@uncorked.co.uk or on 020 7638 5998
Learn how to taste and how grapes are grown and wine is made. Sixteen hours tuition and 48 wines to taste may sound like a lot - and in fact it's just enough to raise a corner of the curtain to see just how fascinating the world of wine is. So don't expect to have learned it all. But be prepared to be educated and entertained on this first step of the journey.
Session 1 - How to taste
27 September 2016
Learn to taste like a pro with six wines in only two hours. This session gives you the tools to enjoy and benefit from the rest of the course. We'll taste wines made from half a dozen grape varieties to illustrate our points.
Session 2 - Farming and making
4 October 2016
Viti/vini as desperate wine trade students say, or to you, grape growing and winemaking. A brief introduction to these craft skills, plus we'll taste six more classic grape varieties.
Session 3 - Southern France
11 October 2016
Southern France and an introduction to the main delimited area quality system used in Europe. We will look at two of France's most famous regions: the Rhone and Bordeaux, amongst others.
Session 4 - Northern France
18 October 2016
Northern France and the glories of Burgundy, the Loire, Alsace and Champagne. Terroir around every corner.
Session 5 - Italy
25 October 2016
In which we attempt the impossible task of explaining and illustrating Italy. With over 20 regions, hundreds of wine producing provinces, nearly a thousand grape varieties and more styles than Lady Gaga, Italy can appear a little daunting. I know a few wine trade students who, in the bad old days of WSET never bothered to study Italy because it was 'too hard'. In those days you didn't actually have to know anything about the country to pass every level of qualification! We will do better than that.
Session 6 - Spain and Portugal
1 November 2016
Spain, Portugal and fortified wines occupy us this evening. They are all quite ambitious topics, but after tonight you will know much more about these two neigbours and their wine cultures. Fortified wines are not currently fashionable but are fascinating creatures, with their nod to alchemy and a plethora of different styles. We'll bring you up to speed. Then we'll probably draw a line under them and move on.
Session 7 - Australia and New Zealand
8 November 2016
On average we pay more for wine from New Zealand than any other country, while the nineties powerhouse that was Australia has been sucked into a downward spiral of supermarket induced discounting and its wines flounder as a result. We'll have a look at the intrinsic qualities of each and its wines.
Session 8 - South Africa and the Americas
15 November 2016
We finish with two hemispheres and possibly three continents, though I never did O level geography. Do isthmuses count? Is South Africa even a New World country? It's all very confusing, but behold! Enlightenment is at hand, so panic not.
