June 18, 2012- I had been eagerly waiting for this day for
quite some time. It is special because
it marks the ‘real’ beginning of something I have wanted to do ever since I
really got serious about wine and first heard about The Court of Master
Sommeliers. All of the wine dinners,
wine tastings, sommelier events, reading, research, cellar digging, wine
bar/gastropub reviews etc…were all practice for what I started today.
Check in time was 8am. I got there a little early so I was
able to snag this photo of me in the lobby of the International Culinary Center
in Campbell, CA.
Being there early allowed me to do what I like doing the
most…find a nice, quiet spot to size up the rest of the class and see who my
friends should be. The makeup of the class what not at all what I expected. I
assumed the class would consist mainly of males 30 years and older and with very
few women- probably because that is the usual demographic for the wine geeks
which populate the local wine bars in Los Angeles and Orange County. You can
imagine my surprise when I saw that this was actually quite a mixed bag,
consisting of both men and women, with ages ranging from early twenties up to
fifties and sixties. There were also a small number of foreign students who had
flown in to attend this course and learn from these Masters.
When class started, I immediately recognized some of the
Masters who would be lecturing today as I have watched many of their videos
online and read their various articles and books. I have to admit, I was a little
star-struck. I felt like a total wine geek at that point.
The Masters in attendance were Randall Bertao, Cameron
Douglas, Brian McClintic and Alan Murray. I wanted to get a photo with them,
but didn’t want to seem like THAT much of a geek. Just take my word for it,
they were there.
Sitting in the classroom, each student had their mise en
place set in front of them with Course Workbook and four wine glasses.
The class started off pretty mellow and easy to understand,
and at a very comfortable pace for me…probably even a little slow. I felt like
I was in good shape. We started with the deductive tasting method, which is
exactly what it sounds like. You take in the appearance, nose and taste of the
wine and break down its characteristics one after another until you narrow down
the varietal, climate, country, region and vintage. Our first flight consisted
of two wines- one white and one red. It was a little early in the morning, and
admittedly, I am not quite sure all of my senses were awake just yet…but had to
have a go at it anyway!
I’ll spare you all the details of the tasting notes, but I was
actually quite surprised that I was able to narrow down the varietal and
vintage of what turned out to be a Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc from 2010. The
same happened with the red, I was able to identify the wine as either a merlot
or a syrah. After a little more digging into the defining features of each, I
was able to correctly identify that it was a syrah between 3-5 years old, but
again had no idea where it was from. (Australia)
The next section was viticulture and winemaking theory. Two
things I was very familiar with and had no trouble keeping up. So
confidence grew some more. I was quite happy at this point.
The next few sections was where it started to get tricky.
Old world stuff, especially French AOC /AOP Classifications and their vast
number of estates, chateaus and regions really started to make my head spin.
What made me even more confused was I felt like the pace was starting to really
speed up, and I was the ONLY one having a hard time keeping up!
I know that I only have a certain amount of wine knowledge,
and I know that I still have a lot to learn…but at the same time, I’m no slouch.
I feel fairly confident that my knowledge base was pretty solid, at least more
solid than the average and even savvy wine consumer. But today, I could not
believe that I was not picking up concepts and lessons as quickly as many of my
classmates.
As the day went on, we had several other flights and blind
tastings, and I was able to nail down a few more. This helped my confidence a
bit, but I still could not understand how my classmates were able to taste and
decipher the blind tastings so much faster than me.
After lunch, we had more blind tasting flights but now we
had to stand up and analyze the wine out loud to the class. I felt fairly
confident having had a reasonable degree of success in the morning…but things
don’t always turn out the way you want them to.
Now, I don’t want to open my book of excuses just yet…but I
did make the stupid mistake of having sushi with wasabi for lunch. Whether or
not that temporarily disabled my senses, I’m not sure…but after lunch I could
NOT smell or taste anything like I could in the morning.
In the morning I was nailing all the lesser known varietals-
Muscadet, Sangiovese, Nebbiolo…but when it finally came MY turn to speak to the
class, I totally screwed it up. It was an old world, sweet white wine, highly acidic
with aromas of slate and petrol. For some reason I came up with 2009 Chenin
Blanc, Loire Valley…when in fact it was a Mosel Riesling, 2010. It was THE most
obvious thing ever, and I blew it. Confidence went down the drain at that point.
The rest of the day consisted of more theory and more
information about various regions, laws, terroir and climates from around the
world. All very interesting, but I was having a real hard time focusing…for a few
reasons. Firstly, because I was burnt out from information overload, secondly
because I felt like I was really struggling to keep up and lastly because of my
Riesling faux pas.
At the last break of the day, I was able to chat with a few
of my classmates. I spoke with a few of them
during the class as an aside during tastings to either confirm what I sensed,
or ask questions about what they sensed. I felt like I was able to keep up with
their tasting abilities, but not the speed at which they can process it. I
finally learned that the majority of people in that class were at the last
stages of an 11 week course taught by the French Culinary Institute and that
they were taking this course as a review for the Level Two final exam later in
the week. NO WONDER!
So I didn’t feel too bad after that. I was able to [more or
less] keep pace with students who were 11 weeks ahead of me.
At the end of the day, we had blind tasted 14 wines- 7 red
and 7 white, traveled to the regions of France, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa and North America, and learned a bit about viticulture and the many wine
laws which regulate the trade all over the world. Not bad for a days work.
Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. Cheers!
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