Many people appreciate wine and wine tasting. Some appreciate it into the wee small hours and wake up the next morning and feel decidedly antagonistic towards it. If you want to avoid the wrath of the grapes, consider a wine appreciation course. This will ensure that you can still indulge your love of its flavour, aroma and texture without getting carried away – Mrs. McMahon’s sewing circle have booked the classroom for the next hour and they know how to break up a party.
The history of wine began when humans stopped wandering the earth and began to settle down, grow crops and start Christmas clubs. Wine was consumed on a huge level, especially when there was no clean water supply. Ancient Egyptian pharoahs liked it so much that some were buried with their wine casks. Wine was also used as a medicine in the 1500s.
Wine Tasting Courses: Advantages
Once you get into wine appreciation, you will never get out. You will scorn the house red in favour of a petulant little number with a wiggle of hickory. This could be one of the reasons why the notion prevails that wine appreciation is a bit, well, poncy. Who can forget Jilly Goolden, of Food and Drink fame, describing an elusive flavour as ‘gumboots roasting by the Aga’
Wine tasting doesn’t have to be elitist. You can use whatever kind of language you want to describe your wine. You can just nod sagely and spit it into the holy water font. Whatever you feel comfortable with.
A wine appreciation course will teach you how to compare various wines and identify the regions that they hail from. It will also teach you how to read wine labels, store, handle and serve wine and recognize quality plonk. You will learn how to match food with wine and will never again have to defer to a waiter on what goes with the chicken. “So, not tequila, then”
Grape over the Grain
If you feel guilty about taking a course in such a pleasant subject, console yourself with some healthy facts. Studies show that moderate intake of wine can increase your IQ and is particularly good at keeping senility at bay. Surveys in Japan, where the elderly frolic like energetic but dignified rabbits, have proven that middle-aged and older people who consume small, regular amounts of wine and sake have IQs higher than those who don’t drink at all.
So if you feel that you need some advice on what Chianti to have with your fava beans why not consider a wine-tasting course. . .
