Final Thoughts Before the Big WSET3 Exam - Wines from Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa - WSET 3.12, 13 and 14

Taking a Beaujolais Nouveau break between studying.

I've been so busy studying the last few weeks that I'm a bit behind. My exam is on Wednesday - two blind tastings, 50 multiple choice, and 4 essay questions.

And, no, I don't think I'm ready.

But we shall see, soon enough!

The last two weeks were a bit of a whirlwind of mock blind tastings, mock questions and looking at a variety of wines. Last week was Port, Sherry and Fortified Muscats while the week before was Sparkling. They were interesting and I did try some good wines but we tended to rush the actual tastings too much to allow for time to practice. I may cover some of those wines down the road but not right now.

This entry, I want to cover the last actual wine class - Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

But first... we tried a simple red for the blind tasting that night - a 2018 Georges Du Boeuf Beaujolais-Villages Nouveau ($20). I have to say that I really did enjoy this slurping wine made from Gamay. It was great to taste the bubble gum, cinnamon, and banana that is characteristic of carbonic fermentation - that's when the fermentation vessel is kept oxygen free and the grapes start to ferment from their insides. They split open and then the whole mess is pressed and continues to ferment until ready. Tannins? Nope! Structure? Nope! Super easy drinking? Yup!

South Africa has some very hot climates but thanks to cooling currents from the ocean and higher altitudes, they also have a lot of wine production. One of the biggest grapes is Chenin Blanc which can be sweet or dry. The one we tried was a 2017 Cape of Good Hope Van Lill and Visser Chenin Blanc ($36). This youthful wine (and that was tricky - I thought it might age) had notes of grass, lemon, vanilla, toast an green apple. It was a dry wine with a long finish and high acid (characteristic of Chenin Blancs) and was rated as Very Good.

The other South African wine we had was their signature grape, Pinotage. Someone, a bunch of years ago, decide that, since it was too hot for Pinot Noir in South Africa, they should cross it with a hardier grape - say, Cinsault (also called Hermitage in South Africa).  They came up with what some call a franken-wine, Pinotage. It's got a bad rap - as many don't have the best taste - however, I have tasted a wonderful one in the Okanagan made my Stoneboat - but that's another story. The one we tried was a 2016 The Grinder Pinotage ($16). I would rather have another bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau, thanks. This did have a lot of aromas - cranberry, cherry, chocolate, coffee, gamey - and on the palate the coffee and blueberry tastes were rather intense. With high alcohol, it had medium acid, intensity, and body with a pretty short finish. I didn't mind it so much during my WSET 2 but now, it was just Acceptable.

A wine down under from a land down under.

Actually, Australia produces scads of wine and most of it is from the South East part. It's a hot country but there are lots of cool breezes to moderate the areas that grow wines that need moderating. Our first wine from Australia was a 2014 Mitchell Clare Valley Riesling. On the nose, it was, "WOW PETROL!" There was also rubber, pear, green apple and wet stone but I had a hard time getting past that petrol smell. On the palate, it was dry like most Australian Rieslings and had apple and spice - probably from lees stirring - as well as high acid, high alcohol, a medium finish, and a pronounced intensity of flavours. That petrol smell is a great indication that this is a developing wine tat could age a long time. It was rated as Very Good.

We had a Very Good Hunter Valley Semillon - which is an interesting wine. It is a rather neutral wine in its youth but develops amazing flavours of toast, nuts and honey. The one we had was a 2011 Tyrrell's Vat 1 ($68). I struggled with the notes on this - but there were notes of grapefruit, peach and brioche as well as some toast and honey. It had medium alcohol and medium plus intensity on the palate as well as high alcohol and a fairly strong finish. This wine could age for 10, 20, even 30 more years!

I do like a tasty Cab Sauv, as you may or may not have noticed from my blog. I love Bordeaux wines and I love Meritage blends from the Okanagan and I love big California Cab Sauvs. Well, add to that ones from Coonawara in Australia which may be hot but, man, they make great wine. We had a 2014 Yalumba "The Menzies" Coonawara Cab Sauv ($99). It was wonderful! On the nose was black currant, black plum, smoke, barnyard, black pepper, menthol and eucalyptus. On the palate, there was also spice and tobacco. This dry wine had strong tannins, high acid, high alcohol, almost full body, a medium plus finish and a pronounced intensity. It could definitely age for awhile and it was rated Outstanding - maybe a good splurge?

Australia has been famous for it's big, bold Shiraz wines - and so we tried a 2015 Glaetzer "The Bishop" Shiraz from the warm Barossa Valley ($51). This had some good aromas including blueberry, vanilla, pepper and black plum as well as an overall jammy taste. I don't mind a little jam but it does take it away from the "Outstanding" category. On the palate there was blueberry and charred wood as well as medium plus tannins and acidity. This wine was fine to age with its long  finish and strong intensity of flavours and was rated as Very Good. 

There are also more restrained Shiraz wines form Australia but we didn't try one  in class. 

Finally, we went to New Zealand. It's not a huge place but they make a heckuva lot of wine. On the cooler South Island is where Marlborough is - and that means, Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand's most famous grape. We tried a 2017 Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc ($36).  This wine had lots of green fruit, asparagus, grapefruit, and lemon on the nose with similar tastes on the palate. It had high acid, medium body, medium alcohol, and a pronounced intensity of flavour as well as a longish finish. This was a youthful wine and, like most Sauvignon Blancs, didn't have any ageing potential but was still a Very Good wine. 

Also from Marlborough, we tried a 2017 Villa Maria Pinot Gris ($22) which was OK. I also struggled with this one a bit but there were notes of peach, apricot, lemon, honey and floral aromas. This was an off dry wine and had high acidity, medium alcohol, as well as medium intensity and finish. Not suitable for ageing, this wine was rated as just Good. 

Finally, we had a wine, also from the South Island, but away from the effects of the ocean. From Central Otago we had a 2016 Matua Pinot Noir ($42 - pretty label award). This was a pretty standard Pinot Noir with red cherry, cranberry, and strawberry notes. It was mostly medium although it had a longish finish. Overall this was just a Good wine - and definitely not worth the price. 

Well, that's it for my WSET 3 classes. All that's left is the test. I have been studying hard and have these things to say on the three parts. 

The blind wine tasting: This all depends on my palate - some classes I have been bang on and some I have been right off. I need to focus on the aromas and tastes rather than trying to jump to conclusions and try to figure out the varietal. 

Multiple choice: I think this will be my strongest part. I have gone over the book many times as well as flashcards from me, my son-in-law Dan, and online cards. I have a very good general knowledge of wines of the world. 

Essay questions: This is my big worry. Even doing the few practice ones online, I find that I can't always think of everything that a question asks - and sometimes I draw a blank. I spent time today doing comparative analysis of the same grapes from different countries so I am hoping that will help me study for the last few days. 

I keep remembering what my classmate, Sarah, said during our tasting group and, again during last week's class - at the end of the day, we have learned so much about wine, tasted some fantastic wine, and met some wonderful people. 

But, damn it, I really want to pass!

Wish me luck...

Hosting a Wine Tasting Party - How It Went!

Everything was almost ready - the pulled pork smelled heavenly, the cheeses were all laid out, water on the table, wine tasting mats all ready. I just needed to put the tasting glasses out that I had bought at IKEA. OK - ten guests means 2 glasses each so 20 glasses....

Oh no, I only have ten! Ugh....

Luckily, I had bought some other glasses that I was going to use for after the tasting but they would have to be tasting glasses as well!

The guests arrived, bringing the required bottle of wine as well as a tasty cheese and some crackers. Luckily, all arrived around 6pm and I had them drop off their cheese and wine at the kitchen counter and have a seat at the table where everything was set up.

I explained the tasting mat and what we could do to help us compare the wines. Above all, I cautioned, this is about friends getting together and having fun - and that is exactly what happened!

I had purchased wine pourers from the local liquor store - and these helped a lot. They slowed down the rate of wine coming out of the bottle and looked very professional as well! I bought two different colours so it was easy to differentiate who was pouring which wine. All wines were placed in paper bags with a label of what kind of wine it was. Due to the rather warm day (26°C.) the Sauvignon Blancs were refrigerated until needed, the Pinots were refrigerated for 20 minutes before serving, and the Shiraz wines were refrigerated for just 7 minutes.

The first two wines were Sauvignon Blancs. I didn't know if there were any big drinkers of SB but I thought that this would be a good one to start off with.

The first was an 2016 Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc ($20)  from New Zealand. It tasted crisp and had nice fruit flavours with some complexity. It was medium in intensity and our group rated it between Good and Very Good. One of our number, Anna, said that she thought is was a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand - Oyster Bay! Truly amazing! Apparently that is one of her 'go to' wines but, still!

The second of the pair was a 2016 Les Fumées Blanches ($15)  from France. It is a Vin de France so is classified as table wine. This Sauvignon Blanc had a low intensity nose and lacked much of the fruit and flavours of the Oyster Bay. There was a subtle minerality underlying this wine but the overall taste was just not that great. Combined with a short finish, it was a bit of a disappointment.

Of our group of ten, nine were in agreement that the Oyster Bay was the better Sauvignon Blanc due to its nose, taste, balance and complexity.

The second two wines were both Pinot Noirs, one Old World,, and one New World.

The first was a local wine from the Okanagan - a 2016 See Ya Later Ranch Pinot Noir ($20). It had some very nice red fruit both on the nose and on the palate. It had a good long finish and was fairly complex. This was a very enjoyable Pinot Noir and was rated Very Good.

The second was a 2014 Joseph Drouhin Pinot Noir from Burgundy ($26). I had bought this one and I thought that it would be a great choice. As it turned out, it was Ok but the flavours seemed a bit too subtle and a bit overwhelmed with the acidity of the wine. There was almost an astringent taste on the finish which was really noticeable to most of us. The harsh finish and lack of real character put this one between adequate and good - it wasn't balanced, nor complex, nor had a good finish. The aroma was a bit intense and the wine was somewhat expressive of Pinot Nor.

Overall, it was another no brainer - nine of ten agreed that the Okanagan Pinot Noir was much better due to its taste, complexity, finish, and balance.

Our final two wines were Shiraz/Syrah. I had intentionally gone from less bold wines to more bold wines so I felt that the Shiraz/Syrah would be a nice way to finish off.

The first was a 2011 Domaine des Lises (no website found - owned by Maxim Graillot)  Crozes-Hermitage ($34) that I also had bought. I had purchased a Crozes-Hermitage last month (surprisingly, an Ogier Heritage Crozes-Hermitage - might have been a 2012) and it was super disappointing - flabby, watery and characterless. I was worried about shelling out $34 for what could be another stinker but thought I'd give it a try.

This was a whole different animal. It had great structure, complex taste of black cherries, black berries and tobacco. The only thing that really stopped it from being an outstanding wine was the fact that it smelled like canned peas! Yes, that's right - canned peas! Once you got through that initial aroma, however, it was an amazing wine. Actually, it was a little short on the finish as well. Still, a Very Good wine.

The second Shiraz was a 2015 Shingleback Red Knot from the McLaren Vale of Australia ($20). This started out very promising with a great bouquet but lost that boldness on the palate where it was rather average. It had some structure but not a lot of complexity of flavours. For all that I've heard of Australian Shiraz's, this one was not overly impressive. It did have a nice, deep, dark purple colour, though. This was rated as a Good wine.

Finally, in the third round, France came up with a victory. This was a bold drinking wine that would do justice to barbecued meats and even a nice, juicy steak.

After our tasting, I set up the bottles with the remaining wine ( about half in each) and we had a variety of cheeses while we chatted, discussed the wines, laughed, and generally had a great time. Another hour later, we brought out the pulled pork and cole slaw and our guests tucked into this offering. Finally, another hour later, out came the peach crisp, coffee, tea and some nice port.

It was past eleven when the last wave of guests left. I high-fived my wife after such a good evening and we went to bed, content in our first-time hosting of a wine tasting party.

Hosting a Wine Tasting - How to Prepare

When I was camping with a few friends earlier this summer, as we drank our wine in the evening after some light hiking, we talked about the possibility of getting together every so often to taste wine. We did this at the camp each night we were there and it was a lot of fun. We also learned about wine and came up with some common ground in terms of smells and tastes.

Shortly after the trip was over I invited my friends and their wives for a tasting evening - and that is happening tonight.

There will be five couples in all so this is how I organized it:

First pair of wines will be Sauvignon Blanc - I asked one couple to bring one from the New World and one from the Old World.
Next pair of wines will be Pinot Noir - I asked one couple to bring one from the New World and I will supply one from the Old World.
Finally, -we are going to do Syrah/Shiraz -  I asked one couple to bring one from the Australia and I will supply one from the Old World.

Yes, I have to supply two bottles but I figured that's the host's responsibility with an odd number of people.

I asked that people spend between $20 and $30 so we will be hopefully getting a decent representation. If a person were to do this themselves, they could pick anything - it doesn't have to be the same varietal in each pair or they could do six different Pinot Noir wines in one night. Since this is the first time I have hosted, I thought doing three different wines would make it a little more interesting.

Next thing I did was to make up a wine mat. I went online and took some information from a couple of different mats and then added my own. Here's what I had:

• two circles for the wine glasses (I bought the small ones from IKEA - 6 for $5) so that everyone had two glasses and could compare. The IKEA ones are fairly small and super cheap so if you break them, it's not the end of the world.
• a box with columns for the number of the wine and rows for appearance, nose, palate and finish. I didn't want to make this overly complicated - in fact, I will suggest that people just put a high, medium or low rating - if they rate each wine at all. Perhaps people can just check the box after we talk about each row.aromas to draw from - although I'm not sure about gooseberry
• overall rating - BLICE - this is the overall rating that we used in WSET 2 to decide if a wine was outstanding (all 5 rated high), very good (3 or 4 rated high), good (2 rated high), adequate (1 rated high) or poor (none rated high). 

Well, you might thing, that's all well and good, but what does BLICE stand for?

• Balance - are the flavours balanced? Is the acidity balanced with some sweetness? Is the alcohol the right strength? Is it overly oaked? 
• Length - is the finish long enough? Can you still taste the wine after 30 seconds? a minute? The taste of the wine should be pleasant.
• Intensity - is the aroma strong? Does the taste really impact your mouth?
• Complexity - are there several flavours/aromas in the wine? If it just tastes of strawberries or oak, it is probably not very complex.
• Expressiveness - from what you know about this type of wine, does it taste similar to them.

I set up the wine mats, and then put the two IKEA glasses down, a water glass, a Solo cup for a spit cup, some crackers and a jug of water.

When guests arrive, I will take their wine and put each bottle in a paper bag that I procured from the BC Liquor store. Hopefully, I will remember to label each bag as well. The plan is to go over what is on the wine tasting mat, then pour two of the Sauvignon Blanc (the first wine) and discuss. Then repeat. And again!  I bought wine pourers from the liquor store so I will have to see if that makes a difference.

I plan to do all six wines at the beginning of the evening. If I make fairly small pours, hopefully there will be enough for people to be able to get another glass of their favourites.

After we taste all of the wines (and people are encouraged to spit, if need be) we will serve a number of cheeses, meats and pulled pork sandwiches as well. This is meant to be an informal night so we wanted to serve food that will be easy to prepare and that people can dig into while they drink their wine.  We also bought some regular sized universal wine glasses (from Costco - and they were not all that expensive) for guests to use as they sip and nosh.

We do have a couple other bottles of wine on hand as we really don't know how this will go. And you certainly don't want to run out of wine!

I''m pretty excited about this evening - I think it will be a lot of fun and I hope that we will all learn something!

Humble Pie - with some Syrah and Grenache - WSET class 5 part 2

I am starting to get to know my wine class group members a bit better. They are a nice bunch of people and I look forward to learning with them each week. They are also all involved in either the wine industry or the service industry and, despite my advantage in amount of years lived, I think their jobs give them a lot more experience with exposure to wine. I guess there aren't that many opportunities to drink wine while teaching....

At least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Sigh....

Tonight's fiasco was the Grenache tasting.  We were given two wines to blind taste - one a cheaper Grenache from Spain and the other a Chateauneuf du Pape.  Several years ago, I was in Chateauneuf du Pape for the wine festival (Fete de la Véraison) and tried many, many different wines from the region. I kind of considered myself a bit of an expert on these wines - until tonight.

The first wine we tried was medium ruby with a medium intensity on the nose. There were aromas of plum, cherry and jam and additional tastes of berry, plum and tobacco. The tannins were low, the acidity was medium with medium body. I thought it had a medium finish but it was actually a medium minus finish. I thought it was the Chateauneuf du Pape but it was actually a Besso de Vino Garnacha from Spain rated Good which cost a pricey $14. Ouch!

The second was medium ruby, and had a medium plus intensity on the nose (yet, I thought it was low intensity). I had a hard time noticing anything beyond red fruit on the nose but there was actually dark cherries, plum, herbaceous, and leather. I thought it tasted a bit thin or watery but I was wrong there as well - it had medium tannins, medium plus acidity and full body. I thought it had a short finish but, in fact, it had a medium plus finish and was rated Very Good. It was a 2013 Domaine Giraud Chateauneuf du Pape that was worth $90!

The person in our group that reported out to the class nailed it perfectly - she could tell which was which. I, on the other hadn't, had it completely wrong! I guess I have to go back to Chateauneuf du Pape for another wine festival!

The final two wines were both made from the Syrah grape (called Shiraz in Australia)  and I redeemed myself a bit - if only to myself.

The first was a beautiful ruby/purple deep coloured wine that had a medium intensity on the nose and smelled of leather, tobacco, white pepper, and currants. On the palate there was black fruit (currants, cherry) and raisin. It had high acidity, high tannins and medium body. It had a medium finish but amazing complexity. This amazing wine (almost Exceptional) was 2011 John-Louis Chave Farconnet Hermitage from France that cost $100.

The second was deep purple with medium intensity with black fruit, black pepper and a bit of mint. It tasted of lots of dark, jammy fruit, had medium acidity, medium tannins, and full body. This Very Good wine was a Torbrec Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in Australia worth $40.

I was able to pick out the Hermitage - but both of these wines were certainly drinkable and good to have. The previous two, though, I don't know how I was so off base!

Now pass another piece of that humble pie....

Mystery meat matches marvellous magenta melange...

On the weekend, I looked through the freezer to reduce the backlog of frozen items. I found some very tasty chicken sausages that we had last night, and I also found some mystery meat.

Unfortunately, our freezer tends to be full of burgeoning mystery meat. It looks like pork chops or chicken thighs or sirloin steaks when it goes into the freezer, but after it's frozen, and because I don't bother labelling anything, it all just looks the same after a while. Which does make life a little more exciting because you never know what you are going to get (yes, yes, thank you Forrest).

The mystery meat was in a freezer bag and was wrapped in butcher paper so I was hopeful that it was some thing tasty  - perhaps a nice pork chop or a piece of lamb?

Today, after I arrived home from my work day, I was pleased to discover that it was actually two nice New York steaks! After warming up the grill, it was time to choose the wine.

Last time, I blogged about how I ended up with three Cab Sauvs by mistake when I told my favourite liquor store expert that I was looking for Cabernet Sauvignon instead of Sauvignon Blanc (rookie mistake..). Well, I decided to try one of them tonight.

I selected a Wakefield Cabernet Sauvignon 2015 from Clare Valley in Australia ($19.99). The Clare Valley is in Southern Australia and is a continental climate with cool to cold nights and warm to hot days and is higher in altitude. Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz (which is the same thing as Syrah) are the main feature although many other varietals (such as Riesling and Merlot) are also grown there.

The colour was medium to high intensity - I had a hard time seeing through the wine but my glass is a lot bigger than the tasting glasses - hmm - maybe I should use the tasting glasses at home. The nose did not seem that strong and, surprisingly, I had a difficult time picking out aromas. I was a bit worried that it had gone off due to cork taint even though it was a screw cap. Apparently cork taint can be in the air of a winery during bottling if other wines are using corks and can get into bottles even without an actual cork. Luckily, there was no cork taint. I did smell jamminess and fruit but not much else.

On the palate, it was a different story. There were strong tannins, tastes of red fruit like cranberries, as well as black fruit like black cherries. There were also definite tobacco flavours. It was a rather bold wine that probably was a bit young with medium acidity. The finish was nice - medium for sure.

Finally, for my WSET course, one of the homework assignments was to have a red wine with something salty so I added a bit of extra salt to a piece of the steak and the wine really complemented it well! The youngish taste actually dissipated a bit!

Can't wait until tomorrow's WSET class!