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Your Path to Ultimate Wine Smarts
Advanced Level Wine Courses
You know how to write a tasting note. You have the basics down cold, but you still need refinement in your calls + your theoretical knowledge needs expanding. It's at this level where we begin to blind taste, connecting the theory to the glass to answer the "so, what?" of wine.
Are you ready to connect it all together?
Refining your knowledge + achieving palate prowess
Signature Courses
Blind Taste Smarter
These courses are designed to help you get to the next phase in mastering blind tasting: knowing your grapes and regions and recognizing them in a blind. These courses dramatically speed up your learning curve and you will learn Master-level ways to more accurately get to the right call. Not only will we be blind tasting to ID regions or grapes, but they will be presented with their laterals (meaning regions/grapes you often confuse others) so you can really hone in on how to get to the right answer faster.
Certification Course
WSET Level 3 Certification
At this level, you will learn how factors affect the style, quality and price of wine and connect it to the glass. In addition to expanding your global knowledge, you learn how to blind taste a wine to determine its' quality, current age, and future age potential. You will walk away with an advanced level palate and a solid perspective over different wine-making techniques in addition to the main grapes and wine regions around the world. We taste over 70 wines throughout the course both blind and "open-label".
Certification Course
Spanish Wine Scholar
There is no other study and certification program in the world that covers Spain with such breadth and depth as the Wine Scholar Guild's Spanish Wine Scholar (SWS) program. In the course, each Spanish region is presented as an integrated whole by explaining the impact of history, the significance of geological events, the importance of topographical markers and the influence of climatic factors on the wine in the glass. All regions are presented with unique wines from that area so the student connects the theory to the glass.
Certification Course
French Wine Scholar
The French Wine Scholar program is an official certification course of study designed by the Wine Scholar guild to provide current, accurate information on the wine regions of France and validate proficiency in the Wines of France. This program covers every wine producing region in France and wines are tasted that represent the topic of discussion. This is a great course for French wine enthusiasts who are serious about deepening their understanding of French grapes, regions and history.
Level 3 Study Support
Learn how to study smart and the right way with the Study Support course supplement.
Blind Taste Smarter Tips
Connecting "the what" to "the why" in the glass
Be careful concluding with color
With red wines, you can gain some useful intell with their color, however with whites it's trickier. Color can suggest things but it's really your nose and palate calls that you can use to make conclusions when blinding.
Look for what's not there
Remember that what is not observable is equally as important as what is. For example, low aroma intensity (meaning it's hard to smell many flavors in the wine) is equally as informative as smelling tons of flavor in a wine with a pronounced intensity. Lack of fruit character can help you determine many things about a wine.
Research every wine you taste
Researching the Tech Notes of how a wine is made is very useful information as it helps teach you to other factors to help you narrow you calls. To become a great taster you have to know how a wine is made and be able to identify that in the glass. Period.
Drill deep into your flavors
Yes, do observe the fruit characteristics, however, it's not enough as you also need to assess their ripeness levels, and consider "non-fruit" flavors as well to get you to the finish line.
Your palate calls are key to ID
Pay attention not just to the level of acidity, tannin or body, but the texture as well. How does the acidity feel? How well is it integrated in the wine? How about the alcohol? Does it burn or bite you on the finish? Getting proficient with your palate calls and analysis is what will take you to the next level. Flavors alone won't get you there.
Consider quality + winemaking
A white wine with a high level of lees contact is very informative! So is a a white wine with concentration and complexity. To be a top taster you must look at the wine in many different angles. Don't worry, that's why I'm here to help guide you to tasting stardom!
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