WSET Lesson 1 part 4 (8/9/09)

First tasting of the course. 

Each lesson we are tasting six wines. Having done lesson two I think the tastings will tie in with the grapes and regions covered. Lesson one we got a grab bag of diverse weights and characteristics to illustrate some of criteria of the Systematic Approach. http://wsetglobal.com/documents/ic_sat_22.06.09.pdf
 
We were asked to put down what we thought. As our first tasting we had little to gauge our findings against. I shall be writing my results in italics where they differ from the rest of the group, or are simply way off the mark. I’m going to put the ‘real’ results in Roman. Alun, our tutor, gently coaxed us back to reviewing what we had written initially once we had a few tastings done. ‘Have another sniff of the first one.’ Light – Medium – Pronounced means little without experience of each.  A group vote showed what most of us had arrived at, then a comparison with the textbook answer. This hands on, eyes, nose and mouth on, part of the course is really, really good fun.

I’ll put the results from each tasting into the same format as our class notes. Without repeating parrot fashion from the course book, I’m going to run through how we get to the results.

Read the bottle. Seems obvious, but until lesson two I’d no idea how to really understand German wine categorization. Each tasted wine I’ll roll off what I’ve discovered about what the words on the label mean. There are initials and terminology to de-code, numbers and dates to consider. It’s all beautifully paraphrased here http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-label-eu.htm
 
This will tell you what to expect, or at worst hope, to find in the bottle. Also another number to consider, in lesson one this was done after tasting, the price tag. Not knowing this first time round we were not far off the mark going in blind. Once we’re all more experienced the pricing point will be key. The expectation from this will determine whether it gets poor-acceptable-good-very-good-outstanding at Conclusion stage.

50ml into the ISO.

Look into the glass. That white background important here. Clear or dull, also if any little bubbles, spritz. Look from above to measure the Intensity.
See all the way through = Pale
See to the stem = Medium
Can’t see to the bottom of the bowl = Deep
Tilt the glass to 45° to assess the colour.
Swirl! Glass on the table, round and round, get the wine moving, air through it, aeration.
If it’s stale smelling then it’s off. Many ways it can go wrong here.
Intensity, we’ll learn to measure this with experience.
Aroma Characteristics is where Jilly Goolden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jilly_Goolden got us all laughing some years back. Now we’re learning this actually fairly standardised vocabulary to express our findings.

Into the mouth. Keep it at the tip of the tongue to test for Sweetness, I’m really struggling with this. Then spit, an inebriated palate is a clouded palate.
The second sip is held in the mouth, air drawn in over it. An exhale through the nose then more air drawn in. This slurping sounds fairly ridiculous done anywhere other than a tasting.
Acidity, felt along the sides of the tongue and the amount of saliva stimulated.
Tannin, like in strong tea, coats the teeth and gets a unique tingle.
Body, this is all about the wine’s sensation, rather than a sensory reaction.
Flavour Characteristics, we’re going poetic again like the Aroma Characteristics.
Spit
Length, what lingers on.
We are all were repeating this to try and pick up all these fine points of tasting.

Conclusions, sum it up very succinctly.

So this is the how, next few posts are the wines we tasted.

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