JCC Vino Appreciation and Recommendation Thread

Depending on the type of white wine you enjoy...oh forget it. Just get a Cakebread Chardonnay. No one is ever displeased with Cakebread. You won't regret it. It's a bit more expensive though, around maybe $35-45 a bottle. It's a very smooth wine, with just a little hint of oak. I'd strongly recommend it. It's just a great chardonnay all around.

 

Will let you know.

 

Yesterday was my birthday, so the wife took me to a steakhouse. We enjoyed a California Cabernet by Sequoia Grove. I may have recommended this earlier but it's just so damn good. A very smooth Cab that lends itself to easy drinking while simultaneously pairing wonderfully with aged steaks. Being at a nice restaurant, the bottle was priced at $79, but you can find this at wine retailers for about $40-50. It's a great wine and I'd recommend the retail purchase.

We finished off with that same delicious Inniskillin ice wine mentioned earlier, from Niagara Canada, I believe. It is like drinking the sweet, golden blood of gods.

 

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The only time I had Franzia wine was years ago, and I don't buy the other brands. But it's gonna make me think twice before I buy another $4 bottle.

 

I don't ever look at the extremely cheap wines myself. They taste like expired grape juice laced with vinegar imo.

 

Chateau Talbot 1997 Saint Julien on Easter Sunday. Wow, what a great drink. Very velvety mouth feel. Saint Julien hasn't let me down yet. Still fruity despite the age, but then it is Talbot.

 

As mentioned earlier, I've been attending wine knowledge seminars in preparation for the Master Sommelier Program by Gallo Wine Academy. As of last week the program finally began and I have passed my Level 1 exam about Australian wine-making. This week I'll be studying in preparation for the exam on Italian wine-making. The Level 1 Sommelier program continues like this for a little bit, bouncing between wine-making countries and each wine-making region and zone in those countries and various grape varietals.

The first comprehensive exam will be in June. I've heard that it's incredibly difficult and many people have dropped out of the program around the time that test comes around. So far I'm doing well though!

 

Had a friend from Australia come to visit the other week, that meant Lynch Bages 1999 & Batailley 2001 came to the party too. I've practically worked through my 'stock' now. I just have a couple of bottles of NV Champagne, Vielle Vignes Chablis & my last bottle of Mas la Plana from Miguel Torres.

Ezio - good luck & stick with it. Got yourself a book for your tasting notes?

 

How much did those bottles set you back?

Typically when I study, I tend to type my notes on my PC's word processor as I go. The chapter on Australia was fairly simple, so I didn't bother taking notes because everything was straight-forward and easy to remember (thank you, Australia!).

But Italy is an insane beast. The entire country produces wine--and every region contains several sub-regions, each with its own primary and supplementary varietals.

I presently have 5 pages of notes...just on one sub-region! Italy has twenty regions--all with at least three sub-regions a piece! I'm about to start studying the second sub-region in Italy's northeastern region, and my brain feels like it's about to collapse in on itself.

After this, I may never drink an Italian wine again out of sheer spite.

 

I effectively got them at cost about 9 years ago. The Batailley was about £20-ish and the Lynch-Bages about £40-ish I think.

New world is easy. Old world is a nightmare! I don't know if Italy will be the worst one but stick with it! Does the assessment have a tasting element to it?

 

There will be tasting sessions, but examinations based on palette and pronunciation are for Level 2 Sommelier programs and up.

My Level 1 Sommelier certification exam will be primarily based on knowledge of the world's most prominent varietals and the regions/sub-regions around the world that they are grown in. It's kind of like a very intense and extensive geography program, wherein you must learn the different lines of latitude correlating to each country's wine growing regions--because distance from the equator and either pole will determine what grape varietals can and do grow in specific regions.

So, for example, a question might ask what prominent international white varietal is grown in the Alsace region of France. Instead of simply memorizing information (and there's a ton of information), it helps if you instead study geography with relation to varietal specifics. In doing so, you'd know that the Alsace region is one of the northernmost wine growing regions of France and that Riesling is an international white varietal that thrives in cooler climates.

The same tidbit of geographical information can be applied in a different but essentially similar question: in what region of Italy will Riesling be grown?
Again, varietal knowledge (Riesling thrives in cool climates) leads you to the answer--what's the northernmost wine-growing region of Italy? Studying geography will point out to you that the Alto-Adige region is Italy's northmost wine region and is actually relatively close to Germany (and Riesling happens to be a native German varietal).

So as long as I continue studying geography and how it correlates to each international and some prominent native varietals, I should be mostly okay.

However, possibly somewhat alarming, there are 150 people in my Level 1 program. The Master Sommelier instructors say that each year the program starts with about this many students but graduates only 50 with certification. Meaning that the course is so difficult that dropping out and failing is commonplace.

Supposedly, the drop out/failure ratio isn't so drastic in the higher levels, as by then the students, now certified Sommeliers themselves, aspire to become Masters.

EDIT:

With regards to New World, the easiest part is that New World laws are fairly easy and simple to understand--and basically identical from New World country to New World country.

Admittedly, the EU has imposed laws in the past decade to streamline legal details amongs Old World countries, but Italy, for example, is still allowed to refer to their own heavily-politicized IGT/DOC/DOCG system and France (the nation on which the EU laws were inspired by) can still use their old terminology and labeling as well. So...yeah, New World is definitely easier.


...so long as you keep in mind that any question about where a certain varietal might grow in Australia is a trick...because Australia's wine-growing regions are upside down.

 

Interesting, I recommend you start keeping a tasting diary anyway, as it is a skill that takes a lot of time to refine.

In the UK even the entry level qualification offered by the wine and spirits education trust (WSET) has a tasting element to it, so don't let yourself hit a massive hurdle if you do go on to do the next level course at some point.

I went as far as completing WSET's second tier qualification which covered what your describing as well as some viticulture / viniculture and beer / spirit production. An old colleague went on to do the third tier and went for his master of wine a couple of years back.

 

Congratulations on your second tier. How did you prepare for your qualification examinations? Did you enter a program like the one offered by Gallo University/Wine Academy?

From what I've been told by last year First Level graduates, the exam mostly involves viticulture, French wine regions/districts/varietals, Italian wine regions/varietals, with a mix of New World varietals and regions, laws for each, and then a few questions concerning spirits. I was told that tastings would be part of the classwork, but that Level 1 exam does not have a graded tasting element (supposedly that's reserved for the Level 2 exam?). The Level 1 course with exam certification here is about $550, I believe. As I understand it, the remaining two levels are cheaper to pursue (not quite sure if there's any truth to that or why that would be true, though).





Getting myself situated for another round of studying French wines

 

Well, all my early studying and work will probably be rendered pointless, as the final exam is quickly approaching and my studying has been interrupted all month by a sudden (though much appreciated) internal job transfer. I haven't been able to make a class during the entire month...I am so screwed. :/