Unit 4 spirits and unit 5 sparkling key

It was with some trepidation that I looked up the WSET web site on Friday evening to see what the samples were I had tasted during my exams on Wednesday. At least the WSET are quick to put students out of their misery regarding the samples.

The 3 sparklers were a Vouvray, an Australian pinot noir/chardonnay rose and an Asti. I've definitely messed up on the Vouvray. I found it to be a very light wine in both aromas and flavours and didn't get any of the autolytic characters I should have found. Surprisingly I did suggest the rose was from Australia made from pinot noir and chardonnay, and the Asti was easy as it was so typical. What probably helped with the Asti was that it had been one of my tasting samples building up to the exam.

The three, all rums, were from Cuba, Barbados and Jamaica. As I said in my previous post, I don't feel I addressed the differences between the production methods well. I do recall saying I thought the third was from Jamaica as it had those estery aromas that are so typical of rums from that island and I'm pretty sure I wrote up the first, the white rum, reasonably well.

I know that getting the country and grape varieties right only counts for 1 or 2 marks but, as my assessment of the Vouvray shows, if you miss out on some basics, such as the presence of autolytic characters, then you have no hope of getting remotely near the correct wine. As the flavours and aromas were so restrained I assessed it as a sparkling pinot grigio. Doh!

20 things about life I've learned from drinking wine

I found reference to this little gem on a couple of blogs so apologies if you have seen it already but it is worth reading.

Noble Rot

An interesting title for the next book to be reviewed for the Wine Book Club. And at £5.50 including postage for a hardly used (it's almost in pristine condition) copy from an Amazon reseller, a bargain.

The book written in 2004 is about the developments in Bordeaux that are wakening up this historic, traditional and significant appellation. It covers everything from new owners and new wines through to the influence Robert Parker has. I need to read this by April 28th and post my review by then.

Incidentally I've used Amazon to sell off some of my old books in the past. It's certainly not a get rich quick operation for the seller. Amazon charge the seller quite a high percentage compared to Ebay which means the seller in this case got very little for the book. I've sold books that cost £3.50 to post so I was almost making a loss. You need a lot of volume if you want to make any money selling used books on the net.

Update on Wine Sediments

I blog over at Wine Sediments twice a month – or rather I did until last week when our leader over at Spittoon announced that the domain had been "lost". The idea is that all the contributors should now migrate their contributions to The Spirit World which will get a rename to something more wine related.

There are many links to Wine Sediments throughout the web. It remains to be seen how this new site will work out and whether it will have the same popularity as Wine Sediments used to have.

The Languedoc

I attended a seminar on the Languedoc at the WSET the other evening run by journalist and broadcaster Susie Barrie. The timing of the seminar was helpful given the changes she was describing as my next Diploma Unit 1 essay is on The Crisis in the French wine industry. I can use what the Languedoc is doing as an example of how some parts of France are taking steps to improve their sales.

The Languedoc is reorganising its classification system having created 1 regional appellation of AOC Languedoc. This includes Roussilon. Within this are the sub regional appellations such as Corbieres, Minervois, Saint Chinian and Faugeres and then within these are what they classify as the crus such as Corbiere Boutenac and Minervois la Liviniere.

Why are they doing this? It is an attempt to react to some forced changes from the EU as well taking the opportunity to build on their strengths. There are 24,000 growers who depend upon growing grapes for a living. Much gets distilled and the EU want that to change. There are 200 co-operatives who need to be more forward thinking to survive. The Languedoc has some significant strengths – their terroir and climate and the number of winemakers who know how to make quality wine. In short their wine is very drinkable and often wonderful value for money.

We tasted 1 Cremant de Limoux and 7 reds including 2 from Val d'Orbieu and Mont Tauch, the 2 biggest and most progressive of all the co-operatives in the region. However there were 3 highlights for me in the wines. Chateau de Pennautier, an AOC Cabardes that had a Bordeaux style to it but sells for around £7 in Majestic. It tasted at twice that price at least. La Sauvageonne Pica Broca, around £8 from Virgin Wines had lovely aromas of blackcurrant, vanillin and cigar box. Made from 60% syrah and 40% grenache it was a Decanter World Wine Awards silver medal winner in 2006. The last highlight for me, and the most expensive at £14,99, was Marks and Spencer's Saint Chinian which had lots of structure around its blackcurrant flavours.


Lots of value and lots of flavour in the wines and the whole region deserves even greater recognition for its wines.

WSET Diploma units 4 and 5 exams

I sat my Diploma Units 4 and 5 yesterday and am feeling reasonably positive although I have my reservations about both tasting papers.

The paper at noon was Unit 5 on sparkling wines. There is always that feeling of dread when you first turn over an exam paper and read the questions but my initial thoughts were that at least I had done some work on all the subjects. The questions were:

Montagne de Reims
California
Lambrusco

I tried to make sure I covered all the usual topics in the first one such as geography, climate, soils and grape types and fortunately the previous day I had been looking over the Domaines Chandon and Carneros web sites so felt able to fill one side of A4. Lambrusco I think was OK despite only being able to name one of the 4 DOC's. I'm not sure about my assessment of the tasting samples. I couldn't detect any autolytic characters in any of them, 2 white and 1 rose.

The 4pm Unit 4 spirits paper had the following questions to answer:

Anise based spirits
Armagnac districts
Peat

I struggled with the Armagnac districts a bit as I couldn't recall the soil types but did manage to fill an A4 side with their names, outline on the geography, grape types and climate. Peat was an interesting one. How can you fill an A4 side on that? By the time you cover the importance to Islay malts of peat, the effect it has on the water and how it is used in the malting process the 10 minutes allotted to the question is up.

The tasting samples were all rums, 1 white and 2 golden with 5 marks devoted to documenting the differences in production methods that determined their differing styles. I know I tripped up on this with samples 2 and 3 as I neglected to mention the impact of differing barrel types on colour preferring to focus on fermentation and maturation time. It remains to be seen if I wrote enough of the right stuff to get at least 2 or 3 of the 5 available marks.

Three months is a long time to wait for the results but it's time now to focus on the 300 hours study time for Unit 3 light wines of the world and the essay due in on April 8th.

Less than 48 hours to go....

There is less than 48 hours to go until my Units 4 and 5 Diploma exams on Wednesday. At noon I'll be sitting the sparkling and then at 4pm it's spirits.

I've been working quite hard over the last few days and have taken today and tomorrow off work so I can concentrate on the studying. I have found the spirits quite hard to get into as the interest level is not the same as it is for the wine. Wine is my passion, not gin or vodka or tequila or any of the other spirits I have had to study and taste. However as I have got into the subject I have begun to enjoy it more but I find the tasting hard as, given the strengths of what I am tasting, it's easy for the palate to feel anaesthetised from all the alcohol. Sparkling has been enjoyable although I have had to spend a bit of money buying samples to taste.

Roll on 5pm on Wednesday when it will all be over although I then have to get stuck in straightaway into my next Unit 1 essay which is all about The crisis in the French wine industry. It's due in on April 8th. And after that I need to continue with Unit 3 on light wines of the world which will build up to the crescendo of the final exam - all 5 hours of it - in January 2009. It's as well I'm enjoying it as much as I do as there is a LOT to take in.

Wines from Trentino, Italy

I helped out at an event showcasing Trentino's wines at the Royal Opera House earlier this week. The keynote of the event was a seminar by Peter McCombie MW matching Trento DOC wines with food.

Now I wonder how many other readers don't realise there is a BIG difference between Trentino DOC and Trento DOC? I certainly didn't until I did some research to find out that Trento is a DOC for sparkling wines made by the traditional method whereas Trentino DOC as well as being a DOC that covers all styles is also the name of the region. My new Italian book came to the rescue.

So I think that makes four DOC's in Italy just for sparkling, Asti, Prosecco and Franciacorta being the other three. Although with autolytic characters, you would be unlikely to mistake these for champagnes. I enjoyed the freshness they all showed with most of them being made from chardonnay and pinot noir.

There were some other interesting grapes as Trentino is known for its indigenous varieties. Marzemino, Teroldego and Noisola are names I remember especially Teroldego as I spent much of the day on the stand of Donati Marco as the producer missed the plane getting to the event. I feel for him. I enjoyed his wine - a ruby red with violet tinges and aromas of raspberries and spices. The producer is looking for representation.

Mindful of my Diploma spirits exam on the 12th March I tried all the grappas but I much prefer to end a meal on a typically Italian note of a vin santo, the best of the event being from producer Cantina Toblino.