Wine Seminars Curriculum

Wine Seminars: Proposed Topics (1 per session)

How Wine is Made

• Grape Cultivation and harvesting
• Wine production: white wine vs red wine
• Where does the alcohol come from?  And can I get some more please???(kidding!)
• Fermentation, maceration, malolactic
• Stainless steel vs oak
• Aging wine before bottling
• Racking, filtering
• bottling and packaging: decisions, decisions!

Tasting and Evaluating Wine

• Involving all your senses
• Take your time!  You'll get to the drinking soon..
• The five S's: see, smell, sip, swirl, savor
• Does it taste like it looks/ smells/feels?
• Classifiying the wines you taste
  • What makes a wine heavy?
  • What is sweet?  And how sweet?
  • Why does this wine make my mouth feel like someone dragged a teabag across my tongue???
  •  Oak? Butter? Toast? Caramel???
• HMM, this wine tastes totally different when I have a piece of cheese with it..
• How the heck am I supposed to remember all this stuff?

Wine and Food Pairings

•  Like with like
• contrasts
• classic pairings
• are there really rules for this stuf???

Napa Valley Wines and Wine Regions

Sonoma Valley WInes and Wine Regions

Mendocino, Santa Barbara, Paso Robles and Central Coast Wines

Wines of Oregon and the Northwest

Wines of Southern Italy: Apulia, Basilicata, Campagna, Sicily, Sardinia

Wines of Central Italy: Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Rosso di Montalcino and others

Wines of France: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Loire

Fortified and Dessert Wines

• Oh no, I don't like those wines, they are too sweet!
• Surprising pairings with sweet wines
• Port: tawny, LBV, Ruby and Vintage
• Sherry: not just your aunt's Harveys Bristol Cream
• Sauternes: the king of dessert wines