WSET, Rewritten.
The Wine & Spirit Apprenticeship Trust, about referred to as WSET, is a British organisation which arranges courses and exams in the acreage of wine and spirits. WSET was founded in 1969,[1] is headquartered in London[2] and is about admired as the world’s arch provider of wine education.[3] The courses accustomed by WSET were originally advised for humans in the wine & spirit trade. The WSET programs accept added been abounding aswell by non-professional connoisseurs.
[Advance levels
The advance agreeable of WSET courses has its focus on accepted abstract ability of the apple of wine and alcohol (countries and regions of production, regulations, their appearance of wine and spirits, grape varieties &c.), and applied identification of beverages and their flavours, including wine tasting techniques.
As of 2008, the levels of courses were as following, application the levels of the National Qualifications Framework of UK:[4]
* Akin 1
o Foundation Certificate in Wines, an anterior advance for bodies alive in either accommodation or retail.
* Akin 2
o Intermediate Certificate in Wines and Spirits, a ample advance of the wine and alcohol area.
o Professional Certificate in Spirits, a added all-embracing advance accoutrement alone spirits.
* Akin 3
o Advanced Certificate in Wines and Spirits, a added all-embracing advance than the Intermediate Certificate, with an added focus on wine tasting techniques
o All-embracing Higher Certificate in Wines and Spirits, a agnate accomplishment accustomed internationally in several altered languages.
* Akin 4
o Diploma in Wines and Spirits, the accomplished advance akin at WSET, advised to accord specialist knowledge.
* Akin 5
o Honours Diploma, an alone research/thesis activity which supplements the Akin 4 Diploma.
WSET’s courses are aswell accustomed by a ample amount of alleged “Approved Programme Providers” about the world. This has fabricated WSET’s advance levels the all-embracing de facto accepted for “practical” ability of wine and spirits, alfresco bookish programmes of oenology, viticulture, aliment technology and agnate subjects, area science and engineering aspects of cooler assembly tend to be in focus.
WSET has created a associates physique for WSET Diploma holders alleged “Institute of Wines & Spirits”. Accomplishment at the WSET Diploma akin 4 is about appropriate to be accustomed into the Master of Wine training,[5] which is abiding by a physique (The Institute of Masters of Wine) abstracted from the WSET.
Wine tasting group and a winning Bordeaux under $20
Value wine stories: they’re even hotter items with wine writers these days than grower champagne or skin fermented sauvignon blanc! So here’s another two cents–or two under $20–from me.
One of my neighbors with a cellar particularly strong in California wines that he bought when he lived there in the 1970s, has been convening a monthly wine tasting of enthusiasts for a few years now. Unfortunately I’m not often able to go because of a scheduling conflict with my teaching, but last week was an exception so I joined the convivial gathering with the theme of currently available Bordeaux under $20.
Despite the fact that some 500 growers a year in Bordeaux go out of business, which might make the situation competitive, I find the wines under $20 to be a mixed bag and not the first destination where I look for value vino. That said, I had found a great value at Chambers Street Wines earlier this year, the Chateau Peybonhomme Les Tours 2005 (find this wine). Hailing from the outer appellation of Premieres Cotes de Blaye, the wine is a typical blend of mostly Merlot. But atypical for the region, the producer is certified organic and biodynamic and uses natural yeasts. I’ve poured it previously at events to great praise and it was a complete steal a steal at $12 when I bought it in December (though now it is a still-reasonable $14).
So my Peybonhomme got decanted and thrown into the lineup of nine wines, served blind. Our organizer requests that each participant rate the wines from their favorite (1) to their least favorite (in this case, 9) and the wine with the lowest score is declared the winner. Some of the stuff was pretty bad–”varnish and violets” or “Brett and ripe blueberry”–but a couple stood out to me. One, had more depth than the others, with alluring dark fruits balanced with rewarding fruit tannins and no trace of new oak.
As our organizer started to reveal the wines, I was surprised to see that my wine had not yet been called out and there were only two remaining. Which wine was was going to take home the trophy? It was the Peybonhomme! And it was my fave of the evening too! The winning margin was surprisingly wide with 34 votes to 39 for the second place wine, which was the Chateau Parenchere 2005.
It’s probably too much reliance on on quantitative methods–what if a few of the tasters simply assigned the scores randomly?–but it was a a fun evening nonetheless. And introducing some competition into it hopefully encourages people to make an effort and get a good wine instead of just getting a bottle of Mouton Cadet or something.
Anyway, in this particular case, to the victor goes the toils: they asked the guy who brought the number two wine and me to coordinate the December Champagne tasting.
David Lett and an Eyrie Vineyards retrospective
David Lett, the pioneering “Papa Pinot” of Oregon’s wine country, died last week at the age of 69 from heart failure. [AP, The Oregonian]
I had the occasion to meet him only once, which was in July at a fabulous, legendary retrospective tasting that included every top pinot noir made at his Eyrie Vineyards from 2006 all the way back to 1970. I was a tad late in arriving at the winery because it is not where the vineyards are in the Dundee Hills–it is actually on the edge of the town of McMinville! By some stroke of luck, in the packed room I found a seat still open right next to Diana, David’s wife, and two seats over from David (pictured with his son Jason, the current winemaker at Eyrie, in the background).
The wines have been controversial since they are classically styled, as the Letts eschewed new small oak barrels, extraction and commercial yeasts among other things. I sent a friend a cameraphone pic that day of the lineup in front of me and he wrote back, “Eyrie–the ultimate anti-Parker wine!” That was perhaps overstating it but, for whatever reason, stylistic or politics, Parker stopped reviewing Eyrie wines some time ago. I asked David if he ever felt pressure to change his style. He showed his determined side saying, “I want to make the wines I want to make–and we’ve got plenty of people who like them.”
But that wasn’t always the case. To my left that day was a Portland attorney who had been perhaps one of the winery’s longest customers. He told me that he drove out to McMinnville in 1973 and bought $1,000 of wine from the Letts. On the way home to Portland, he said his Peugeot was riding low. Diana chimed in that she remembered how that check had “paid a lot of bills” for them.
After his 1975 South Block Pinot placed third in the 1979 Gault Millau tasting in Paris that pitted Oregon Pinots against red Burgundies, Eyrie won a broader following.
Turning to the tasting, I found the wines to be remarkable in their longevity. The wines were served bling and in the 2000 flight, I really liked the 2002, 2005 and 2006, the latter two wines Jason presided over. The 1990s were quite strong, with many of the wines picking up a subtle delicacy. The 1980s had a few more clunkers but also some gems. I was worried approaching the 1970s flight.
But despite my apprehensions, the flight was very strong. The 1978 was a loser, older with browning color and a taste that was definitely over the hill. When reminded that he didn’t like it almost 30 years ago David quipped “I still don’t like it!”
The 1972 was a real standout for me, zesty and amazingly fresh, bright with aromas of violet and anise. The 1976 also had great poise.
But it turned out that the last wine we tasted was the famous 1975 South Block reserve. It was still tasting lovely and rich, with great aromas and serious character. When the hands went up in the room to ask the favorite of the flight, this was the clear winner.
David leaned over to me and said, both about the wine and the occasion, “This is incredible. i just love it.”
2004 Kalleske Clarry’s Red
2004 Kalleske Clarry’s Red
The charming 2004 Clarry’s Red is a delicious concoction of 80% Grenache and 20% Shiraz. With abundant quantities of black cherries and currants as well as hints of plums and pepper, this medium-bodied, soft, velvety-textured, seductive red should be enjoyed over the next 2-3 years.
In 2004, Kalleske was the biggest surprise of my tastings. Thanks to cutting edge importer, Dan Philips of the Grateful Palate, I was introduced to the high quality wines of Troy Kalleske, one of the Barossa’s top growers who owns 400 acres, primarily in the highly renowned Greenock region. This is clearly an up and coming superstar estate that merits considerable attention.
Importer: Dan Philips, The Grateful Palate, Oxnard, CA; tel. (888) 472-5283
Rating: 90 Estimated Cost: $18-$32
Early drinking leads to health, behavior problems later in life
Study finds drinking before age 15 increases risk for drug abuse, early pregnancy, criminal behavior and sexually transmitted diseases – – Irvine, Calif., Alcohol education programs that focus on so-ca… [WebWire - Thursday, October 16, 2008]
Boycott Beaujolais Nouveau — drink local
This November 20, cases of Beaujolais Nouveau will fall from the sky and land as endcaps in wine shops everywhere. This fall, I encourage you to say no to the Nouveau–and reach for a local wine instead.
Beaujolais Nouveau is a travesty on at least two levels, one gustatory and one environmental. The grapes for this proto-wine were harvested only three months prior to the airdrop. In some years, they are not ripe enough and need to have their alcohol levels boosted by sugar. And most of the Nouveau is made with machine-harvested grapes, commercial yeast strains and enzymes to give it a confected taste. Don’t get me wrong: I think gamay is one of the most food-friendly red grapes and a great value but mostly when it hails from one of the smaller subzones of Beaujolais.
Regulations prohibit the bottling of the wine more than one week before the arbitrary date, when signs all around the world used to proclaim triumphantly “le Beauolais noveau est arrivé” (the Beaujolais nouveau has arrived!”) Now, the dreadful slogan is “It’s Beaujolais nouveau time!” which sounds perilously close to a rip off of a Miller ad.
The short allowable time between bottling and release sets off a global sprint to transport the wine as far afield as Tokyo, San Francisco and Santiago. This has involved motorcycles, trucks, helicopters, regular jet planes and even, in a previous era, the Concorde!
As my research on the carbon footprint of wine has shown, airfreight is hardly the best way to transport any wine even if it were good. A bottle of Georges Duboeuf flown to New York has four times the carbon footprint than if it were sent by ship.
But the idea of a global wine celebration on the third Thursday of November is too appealing to ignore. So let’s ride on the coattails (jetstream?) of this global wine celebration but raise a glass of local wine instead. Wine is now grown in all 50 states and many of us who don’t live on the West Coast overlook our local producers. And many of those wines are likely to go well with the Thanksgiving repast.
So say no to Nouveau and join me in raising a glass of local wine this November 20! Do it for the polar bears.
Thierry Puzelat: rebel winemaker
Crises–they’re everywhere, not just the financial markets. In France, the low-end producers have been in crisis for some time with adjustments in global demand and European policy. And for appellation wines, theoretically high-end of the quality pyramid in France, the crisis is that the system is now approving bad wines while squeezing out producers who dare to be different. I explore these issues in my book, Wine Politics, and Mike Steinberger offered his own recent broadside against the AOC system in discussing the celebrated case of Jean-Paul Brun’s 2007 Beaujolais. In a nutshell, the wine tastes great and was denied the appellation while truckloads of insipid wines were given the green light since they were deemed “typical” in an AOC taste test.
In a series of posts, I’ll be exploring some of the producers who have decided for whatever reason to make their quality wine outside of the appellation system in France.
And one of my favorite such producers is the super-naturalista Thierry Puzelat in the Loire. I’ve been reluctant sometimes to pour wines made from the hipster grape variety to an audience of non-wine geeks. But I poured his Pineau d’Aunis (about $20; where to buy?), at a recent at a recent event in Chicago but it rocked the house.
But the wine for today is La Guerrerie (about $20; where to buy?). Since it is bottled as the lowly administrative category vin de table, it can’t state grape, place nor vintage. Thus it is simply La Guerrerie, which I thought was some sort of cheeky name riffing on “war” (la guerre) for the struggle with the authorities. But it is not so. I queried the wine’s US importer, Joe Dressner, who replied:
Guerrerie is a site, about 68.37% Côt [malbec] and 31.18% Gamay. Folklore has it that the spot was where the ancient gangs of the area used to rumble, or something like that. But no one is certain. Nevertheless, that is the name of the plot on the map. It doesn’t have the AOC because the wine took a long time to finish and it was not in a tastable form when the AOCs were evaluated.
The wine, with only a dash of sulfur added before bottling, is dark in color with great aromatics, particularly a grind of pepper. The wine has some fruit, lively acidity and a fun level of tannins that make it substantial and extremely rewarding–a perfect red for fall weather since it’s got more heft than a straight gamay but not as much as, say, a barrel-aged cabernet.
For more on the Puzelat brothers, including photos from a visit, check out Wine Terroirs. And don’t forget how well Thierry Puzelat did as the Cinderella in Wine Madness!
Men and women treated differently in restaurants: right or wrong?
Frank Bruni, restaurant critic for the NYT who also moonlights as presidential debate analyst, has an expose in today’s paper about unequal treatment of men and women in restaurants. Is it chivalry or chauvinism, he wonders. To the tape:
Because men can generally put away more food and alcohol, “men spend more, women spend less,” said Steve Dublanica, author of the recent best seller “Waiter Rant.” In addition, he said: “Men eat and leave. Women eat and stick around.” So a server attending to women may have to wait longer “to turn the table over, get another group, get more tips.”
In a follow-up blog posting, Bruni added this tidbit too from a restaurant veteran: “When drunk,” she told me, “men fight, and women vomit.” (Except for Jermain Dupri who vomits in his girlfriend’s (Janet Jackson) lap after which she squealed and had her driver high-tail the Maybach outta there.)
Do you encounter different service at restaurants, particularly when it comes to wine service such as ordering and sampling the bottle? If so, is it supremely annoying or entirely appropriate?
Talking and tasting climate change and wine at the AMNH
Come spend a night at the museum! I can’t promise that Ben Stiller will be there or that the dinosaurs will come alive but hopefully it will still be a good show.
On October 28, I’ll participate on a panel at the American Museum of Natural History about wine and climate change. Gregory Jones, a leading researcher on how climate change affects wine growing regions, will be flying in from Southern Oregon University. I’ll be talking my own research findings about the carbon footprint of wine. And Evan Springarn of David Bowler Wines, an importer and distributor, will talk about the various shades of eco-wines. Best of all, he’ll be bringing four such wines for us to taste!
Head on over to the AMNH web site to book your tickets now and prepare to stimulate the mind and the palate.
Photo: istockphoto
Wine auctions, investments, strategies – Charles Curtis of Christie’s
Master of Wine Charles Curtis joined Christie’s auction house this summer as head of the Wine Department in North America. Trained as a chef, he entered the wine trade in 1994 and most recently was with LVMH. I caught up with him via email.
Christie’s Wine Department had $71 million in sales worldwide last year, the bulk coming in Europe. On November 29, they will resume live auctions in Hong Kong. For the complete calendar, see the Christie’s Wine Department web site.
1. How is the financial turmoil affecting the fine wine market?
Like all industry leaders, Christie’s is watchful of the unfolding situation in the financial markets, particularly as it relates to our clients and business.
As regards the current financial malaise, it is important to note that the wine market has traditionally had little direct correlation to the financial markets, so we are cautiously optimistic that our business will continue to be strong throughout the fall season and beyond based on the quality of property we have scheduled for sale.
Recent sales results, healthy consignment levels for forthcoming sales, as well as the depth and breadth of our global client base, continue to support the long-standing axiom that passionate collectors seek rare and important objects based on their availability, not on external economic factors.
Our recent sale of 2000 Bordeaux in London is a prime examples of the strength of the current wine market in spite of the above mentioned trading conditions. The sale was 98% sold by value, with particularly robust results for Lafite and Latour as well as the signature 59 case superlot that closed the sale. Results from our competitors are also consistent with this view.
If difficulties on Wall Street occasionally serve to bring long-horded collections to market, there are always buyers for those collections. I have recently spoken with several individuals seeking to expand their position in fine wine on the assumption that this fall’s offer will be exceptionally rich.
2. Which categories or properties are particularly in favor right now?
The current market is somewhat polarized at present, with collectors favoring the top wine in mint condition. This includes Bordeaux’s “super eight”: the five first growths + Petrus, Ausone and Cheval; DRC and other top Burgundies such as Rousseau, Roumier, and Ponsot; and a limited number of iconic wines from producers in other regions, such as Screaming Eagle and Grange Hermitage. For this client, condition is of the utmost importance, and top dollar goes to full cases of wine in their original wood case.
The trade, on the other hand, has been focusing on “value” lots, such as the “super second” chateaux in Bordeaux, 1er cru Burgundy from early-maturing vintages such as ’01, ’00, ’98; Champagne, and new world wines from up-and-coming producers such as Sloan in California, Quilceda Creek in Washington, and Chris Ringland in Australia. Here condition and provenance are still very important, but buyers will more easily tolerate cases that are not complete.
3. Can you go short Lafite?
To the best of my knowledge, no one has profited from shorting a wine, and such an effort would certainly be risky. Theoretically, though, if one expected the market to decline, one could offer the wine for sale at a given price on a set date and hope to purchase it prior to that date at a lower price from a motivated seller. So while theoretically it might be possible to short Lafite, this is certainly not a gamble that I would feel comfortable taking in the present climate. Lafite is just the sort of blue-chip property that has held its value very well in the present climate, since investors see it as a hedge against volatility.
4. How are wine investment funds changing the fine wine landscape?
Wine investment funds have more of an impact in the U.K. than they do here in the U.S., but their influence is beginning to be felt. Since the managers of these funds tend to have fixed, somewhat conservative portfolios of wine that they try to acquire it has meant that there are in some cases more dollars chasing a diminishing amount of wine, ultimately fueling recent increase in prices. It is impossible, however, to separate this from the another type of new demand coming on line – the new wealth from rapidly growing economies such as those in Russia, China, India, Brazil and other countries.
5. What are some categories right now that represent accessible entry points for people just getting in to collecting or consuming mature wine?
The best way to participate in a wine auction is as follows:
A. Decide the type of wine that you will pursue and the amount of money that you’d like to invest. Remember that top wines from top vintages command a healthy premium, but have the best resale value.
Value categories include second growth Bordeaux, particularly from the less sought after years. 1996 red Bordeaux is a great one to target, since there’s plenty of stock, and while prices have risen, they’re far from the top end. The 1995 vintage is also very attractively priced, and the wines should mature more quickly.
The top wines from California still attain very generous prices, but there are a host of classic properties behind the five or so top cult wines that are extraordinary values.
There are also great bargains to be had, as there have been for the past several years, in white Burgundy and in Italian wines. Look for ’96 white Burgs (which are holding up better than previously thought) and for Barolos from the ‘80s.
B. Identify relevant lots in upcoming sales
C. Understand the market for the wines that you covet – how much are they “worth”? How rare are they? What should they sell for? What constitutes a bargain in this category?
D. Formulate a bidding guideline for yourself – where will you start? Where will you drop out
E. By all means, attend the sale to watch the ebb and flow, meet the participants, and drink a glass of champagne. Be certain to meet the specialists, who will be very happy to offer you their take on the sale at hand and the market in general.
