Wine Wine Wine

3 weeks ago I enrolled on a wine course with the view of career progression and a better knowledge of the wine world. 3 days later I receive a book in the post and a letter welcoming me onto the course.

Being in the wine trade I thought this would all be pretty familiar stuff…….. I was quite wrong it turns out!!! The first 74 pages I had never read a single thing about and the rest, very in depth about the things I thought I knew. So I start reading away trying to understand the anatomy of a vine and how to clone them, the various ways of wine making and Terroir and the countries that produce wine. Now, bear in mind I haven’t really done any level of academic work since I left college to go to New Zealand so trying to remember all this was proving quite hard and I started to worry that I wouldn’t have sufficient knowledge to pass the exam at the end of the month thus resulting in embarrassment and shame. I call the course leader and get a reassuring response to my worries and how he’s had people who turn up on the course having never read the book in the first place. So I carry on reading and had a little break with some good friends up the Norfolk coast with a pub lunch.

Monday morning I turn up with a large coffee in me ready to learn!

I’m the first to arrive so this gave me the opportunity to have a chat and ask a few questions. It turns out that I’m not the only one to jump straight onto the level 3 (oh yeah, he said I could skip the level 2 due to my previous experience), a Chinese chap called Dong Wang, but we call him Andrew, hadn’t had any previous wine knowledge at all. He just came on the course for something to do during his Easter break, as you do. So this did make me feel a little better. The other two members had done the level 2, one a hospitality manager and the other a wine steward at a Cambridge college.
So we get to it covering tasting technique,  wine production and Bordeaux on the first day, then Burgundy, Alsace, southwest France, Loire, Rhone & southern France. It’s run very well with a slide show style presentation and open discussion on most points and tasting of a wine from the area so we can hone our palate and technique. I’m finding this way much easier to fill those gaps than reading on and on. Plus the lunch served is spot on.

Looking forward to next week, but until then it’s more note making and reading my book like a bible

Excuse the absence

Ok, so it seems my attempts to start blogging didn’t get off to a brilliant start.

Truth be told I’ve been away in Portugal which was just wonderful. We had a week in Faro as a little holiday before Elizabeth sets into her revision for her finals in a couple of months.

View from the top of the Cathedral 

Faro turned out smaller than we expected which worked out to be a good thing as we could walk around most of it with ease and with the hotel right in the centre, it was certainly convenient. As a very religious country there were lots of churches and a cathedral to look around to get your fill of culture. Although there is a chapel of bones which was quite strange!!!

The Chapel of Bones

But the best thing about the holiday was the food. Fish was the main choice most night when we dined out and we were not disappointed. A small restaurant that we had recommend called Antonio's turned out to be the best and after 2 visits we would recommend it to anyone. The sea bass was particularly good

Sea Bass rolled with Pancetta



As usual we were greeted back to Blighty with Rain….