PCC Wine Circle Intermdiate Wine Course

1. Intermediate Wine Course
2012
Copyright © Brian Jamieson

2. Tricia Christmas
&
Brian Jamieson

3. Course aims
• To build on your experience of assessing,
understanding and enjoying the wines of
the world.
• To increase your confidence when
selecting and offering wines.
• To have good fun!

4. Introductions
• Name
• Any favourite or memorable wine?

5. Course outline
Sessions
1. Wines & winemaking
2. Sth Australia
3. Spain
4. California & Oregon
5. Viognier
6. Vertical tastings

6. Structure of each session
• Some theory and information
• DVD clips
• Practical tasting

7. Wines & winemaking:
Today’s plan
1. Grapes
2. Wine making
3. Wine tasting
4. Global wine
production
5. Food & wine
6. Seven wines to
taste

8. 1. Chablis, Les Champs Blancs, Pascal
Bouchard, AOC, 2010
• Burgundy’s northern outpost
• Chardonnay
• Unoaked; fermented and matured in
stainless steel
– Colour: Light
– Aroma: Citrus fruits (subdued), melon ...
– Palate: Fruity, citrusy, slight creaminess ....
• Fruit/acid balance?
• Residual sugar?

9. Chablis

10. Grapes & Winemaking
Tricia Christmas

11. Grape species and varieties
• European Vitis vinifera
– Wine-making variety
– Native to Europe; now universal
• American Vitis labrusca
– Native to Nth America; doesn’t make
palatable wine
– Rootstocks saved European wine production
in late-19th century Phylloxera epidemic; V.
labrusca resistant to the Phylloxera weevil or
nematode

12. Grape varieties
Any others?

13. What’s in a grape?

14. Simplified wine making!
White Red

15. How is quality & variety introduced?
In Vineyard Post-harvest
• Grape variety • Sorting
• Geology & soil • De-stemming
• Climate • Crushing
• Aspect; slope • Fermentation
• Culture • Filtration
(pruning, training of
vines, etc) • Blending
• Weather at harvest • Fining
• Time of harvest • Maturation
(residual sugar levels) • Bottling/labelling

16. Wine tasting
1. Sight Eyes
2. Aroma Nose
3. Palate(taste) Mouth

17. 1: Sight - Eyes
• Clarity
• Colour
– rim
– body; density of colour
• Suggestions of
– production method – steel (pale) or oak
(darker whites)
– age of wine
– grape variety

18. 1: Sight – Age of wine

19. 2. Aroma - Nose
• Fresh - Proceed
• Any mustiness – REJECT
– One bottle in 20 corked
– Including screwcaps!
– Try the cork first for mustiness
• Aromas?

20. Types of Aromas
• Primary:
– Grapes and terroir
• Secondary:
– Fermentation products
• Tertiary:
– Products of maturing and ageing

21. Essential wine aromas
• Fruity:
– Citrus, lychees, red & black berries....
• Floral:
– Rose, violet, acacia, honey....
• Vegetal:
– Mushroom, pepper, pine, grass, vanilla....
• Animal:
– Leather, musk, butter...
• Roasted:
– Chocolate, smoke, roasted nuts....

22. Aroma exercise: 1
• Pear
– 10
• Raspberry
– 13
• Butter
– 47

23. Aroma exercise: 2
• Aroma 1
– Lemon
• Aroma 12
– Strawberry
• Aroma 30
– Green pepper