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This Week’s Latest Wine Headlines: January 24—January 29

Happy Weekend—here’s your weekly dose of wine related news. A couple of highlights—California lifted its stay-at-home order which means that restaurants, bars, and wineries can now serve patrons outdoors. Mixed feelings on that one myself—just stay safe if you decide to partake. And did you hear about Bordeaux? Whoever says that the French are entrenched in tradition, well, they’re right, but that hasn’t stopped them from (finally) allowing a few new grape varieties into the Bordeaux AOC and Bordeaux Superior AOC appellations. We’ve got a good breakdown from Decanter about what those grapes are and why they’re so important to the region at this point in time.

If I have to recommend on Blog Post, it’ll be Donald Edward’s expose on Tim Atkin’s blog looking into the Aboriginal origins of some of Australia’s best-known wine regions.

And, selfishly, I have to add that if you haven’t read my piece for SevenFifty Daily on regenerative agriculture—what it means and how it can (and does) shape wine growing agriculture—make sure to check that one out. I’ll actually be leading a seminar on the topic in March so stay tuned.

Thanks as always for hanging out with me. Cheers.

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This Week’s Latest Wine Headlines: January 17—January 22

Hello my friends, happy weekend to you. As you read this, I will be sitting in one of my WSET Diploma classes—hopefully learning lots and having fun. If you’ve missed any of my latest WSET posts, make sure you scroll back through the home page roll—lots of good notes, tasting and test-taking tips, etc.

I’ve got a good list of wine-related newsy items for you today, but I’ll be honest, the best news from my week is the first item on the list.

Enjoy your weekend…Cheers!

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This Week’s Latest Wine Headlines: January 10—January 15

Happy Weekend, friends. First, if anyone’s had trouble viewing or navigating the site lately, I apologize, I’m currently working out some bugs. Second, hopefully you’ve been keeping up with my latest WSET Diploma posts—there’s been a flurry of them, so make sure to scroll through the past few weeks.

Personally I’ve been keeping very busy (as well as distracted by current events as I’m sure you all are as well). But I’ve still managed to pull together my weekly roundup of wine newsworthy stories. Hopefully there are a few things of interest for you here.

Cheers.

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This Week’s Latest Wine Headlines: January 3—January 8

Happy New Year and happy weekend to you. What a week it’s been, eh? I don’t know about you but ever since the events on Wednesday, I’ve found it hard to focus on pretty much anything else. So, in case you missed some of the latest happenings in the world of wine and food, I’ve got my weekly round up ready for you—including a piece by yours truly.

And for those of you studying along on my WSET Diploma journey, make sure to take a look at these latest posts: WSET Diploma Tasting—Common Grape VarietyWSET Diploma Tasting—Common Region of Origin, WSET Diploma Tasting—Burgundy’s Chardonnay Spectrum, WSET Theory—Burgundy Chardonnay.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and drink good wine.

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WSET Diploma Tasting—Common Region of Origin

I know that the tasting portion of the D3 WSET Diploma Exam can be one of the most intimidating. Indeed, when I took my Level 3, my nerves overtook my tastebuds, and I found myself second guessing my tasting notes the whole time. To help me gain more skill and confidence in those skills, I’ve been taking some tasting classes geared toward WSET Diploma with a Master in Wine in preparation for my exam. And I recently had my partner help me with a blind tasting mock exam, which I’d like to share here.

The goal is to help those of us who are preparing the WSET exams key in on wine evaluation (following the SAT guidelines) as well as how to correctly draw conclusions about the wines tasted and communicate the justification for those conclusions.

Following the WSET taste testing format:

Wines 1–3 relate to Unit D3 of the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines All are made from the same region.
Describe them under the headings below.

Follow along on my tasting notes and see if you can figure out what the common region of origin is. Note: This exam also, for two points, asks examiners to determine the grape variety (but not qualify that determination). I’ve included my deduction in each tasting note below. However, I’ll leave the wine reveals to the very end of the post. Good luck and have fun!

Dreamstime.com

 

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