Wine - and what I learned from the WSET 1 course

“Don't worry - I’ve done it all: I’ve choked and coughed my wine out on the table, I’ve dribbled it onto my chin and drooled into my lap.”

Our instructor for the WSET Level 1 was now teaching us how to taste wine. Inhaling air through the mouth after taking a swig of wine (in other words, slurping like a maniac) aerates the pallette and in effect wakes it up to a myriad more flavours than one would accomplish by just sipping coyly. The girl sitting next to me, a bartender at a classy local restaurant, burst into a coughing fit. “That’s it, good!” Said the instructor. “You’re being aggressive. Great.”

At that point I was really wondering what I had signed up for.

Typical scene from the WSET Level 1 course: popping corks left right and centre.

This post is about my experiences learning about wine at the Wine & Spirits Education Trust’s Level 1 course held in St. John’s in October. In a nutshell: it was a blast. We tasted wine from 9am to 5pm on a Sunday. We were taught by Erin Turke, former sommelier at the beloved Raymonds, about why to pass up a Pinot Grigio and hail a Riesling,  about pairing a Sauternes with a jube-jube, about why you shouldn't eat spicey food with a Barolo. In fact learned so much about wine on that windy autumn Sunday in October that I find it genuinely hard to believe the attendance was so low: only seven people showed! So I’m going to share a thing or two about the secrets us lucky seven were let in on.

The WSET Level 1 is a basic introduction to wine, targeted at the industry type or wine aficionado who wishes to gain confidence in the acquired skill of wine tasting. Found in as many countries as you’ll find winos, the WSET (Wine & Spirits Education Trust) is both a club of gilded wine knowers and a nomadic group of wine teachers. The teachings culminate in a series of tests; five levels of certification increase exponentially in difficulty. To my chagrin, it turns out the Level 1 course, which I completed in October, barely counts for anything at all. At Level 2 you get a nod of approval for having started your formal education in wine. At Level 3, you might be considered a sommelier - that is, unless you’re in the company of those studying for Level, 4 a significantly more challenging certification demanding a whole new dimension of wine knowledge. Level 5 involves a research thesis; few complete it and rumour has it it will soon be discontinued.

Chateau de Sancerre, Sancerre, Loire, France, 2015 (~$30). Grape is Sauvignon Blanc. Light with high acidity, this white wine tastes like green fruits and has herbaceous notes, likely freshly cut grass. Would pair easily with a salad. Someone called it "edgy" and I had to agree.

My favourite of the day! Dr. Heidemanns-Bergweiler, Graacher Himmelreich Riesling, Kabinet, Mosel Germany, 2013 (~$25). Riesling from Mosel, where the wine tastes like rocks and smells like flowers.

But what is a sommelier and where do they come from? Are they pretentious jerks that use words like "foresty" to describe their Pinot Noir? Are they gonna judge you because you brought a $12 Chardonnay-Pinot Grigio blend to the dinner party? From what I've taken from the culture surrounding the somm business, this couldn't be further from the truth.  In reality, anyone with a sense of smell, a sense of taste, and a sense of curiousity can love and appreciate wine - and this is what somms most want to show the people around them. The somms in St. John's seem to be intelligent and fun-loving people - who might just tell you about a bottle of '88 Bordeaux someone brought up from the cellar one night during a snowstorm.

My personal interest in wine started in the bright and tall dining room of Raymonds, where I first experienced an amazing thing: the wine-paired tasting menu. I recall being besieged by a lovely woman holding a bottle of wine at a jaunty angle. (By coincidence this woman was actually Erin, who’d be teaching my WSET course years later.) A glass was poured with a flourish and a story told about a vineyard. Now I have to ask the question: how many meals do you remember from five years in the past? Because this meal I remember exceptionally well. And the one moment that stands clearest in that memory was when I realized my wine was in perfect harmony with my food. I was astonished - every bit of food and every sip of wine coming out in crystal clarity without any one washing out the other. I stole a glance at this woman carrying a wine bottle wrapped in what appeared to be a small toga. Who is this person? She is a rock star. A magician. She has the best job in the world. She is a professional fermented grape juice expert. She makes people feel happy and silly for a living. I was incredulous that such a profession existed. I hope that you, too, have the pleasure of meeting a  sommelier at a restaurant one day.

This wine made the Merlot that followed it feel self-conscious. Chateau Meyney, Saint-Estephe, Bordeaux, France, 2009 (~$60). Deep ruby colour, medium-full body, tannic and acidic with loads of flavour (cherry, tobacco, black current). A keeper.

The poor Merlot has fallen out of fashion. Here's the Carmen Gran Reserva, Merlot, Maipo Valley, Chile, 2013 (~$20). Medium body, medium tannin, and medium acid, this middle-of-the-road wine tasted like plums and Christmas spices (fruitcake, chocolate, vanilla, cinnamon).

Chateau St. Jean, Chardonnay, Sonoma, California, 2014 (~$20). Dry white with medium-full body and low acidity. Tasted like tropical fruits and stone fruits. Had definitive butter and vanilla characteristics, sure signs of oak aging.

So I didn’t think twice about signing up for the Level 1 WSET course. It was suggested to me by my friend Maura Casey, during my short visit to London in June. She is the somm at the Michelin Star restaurant Spring. Naturally I pestered her non-stop about her job and helped her study for her upcoming WSET Level 4 exams by drinking a bunch of wine with her one night. Finally, one day when I wandered into the restaurant in my street clothes during a high profile function during lunch service, she thought it best to deflect any further interest to the WSET. I was served a coffee free of charge (it was exceptional) and shown the door.

So finally, months after signing up for the Level 1, there I was sitting in the member’s lounge at Clovelly Golf course. The somm from Raymonds was finally sharing her secrets. Seven students sat at tables covered with wine glasses, one a CEO of a prominent local organization, one a chef at Raymonds, another a bartender from The Merchant Tavern, the rest a quiet convoy of self acclaimed “wine snobs.” I myself professed to being “just curious.” (I was smacked with imposter syndrome. When did I admit I’d never tasted a Sauvignon Blanc?)

Kallekse Pirathon, Shiraz, Barossa, Australia, 2013 (~$40). Full body with high acid and softe tannins. This wine had strong notes of black pepper, blueberry, and cooked fruit. Fun to compare to the more restrained French Syrah (of the same grape).

We went over the fundamentals of wine. We peeled a grape to taste the tannins in the skin. Tannins cause that dry puckering in the palate. You get the same effect from over-steeped tea. I was surprised to learn that the skins of grapes go into red wine but not into white - which explains why whites, without any tannins at all, shine so clearly to the taste compared to reds.

It was barely 10am and Erin, our instructor, announced that it was time for a glass of Champagne. Fantastic. She hadn’t yet taught us how to spit out the wine (as professional tasters do so you don’t get loaded from tasting all day), so naturally we relished this chance to take the edge off. We gulped down the delicious Blanc-de-Blancs Champagne and grinned at each other like children who were told they could eat cake before dinner. Erin poured four additional wines and the fun really began. We smelled, swirled, smelled again, sipped, slurped, spat, and talked about what we tasted. She purposefully ordered the wines from bone dry to sweet. This set her up for what I thought was the highlight of the day: learning about the basics of wine-pairing. She brought out a plate of “snacks,” goat cheese to represent umami, jube-jubes for sweetness, lemon for acidity, and wasabi peas for heat. I popped Swedish berry into my mouth and sipped wine 1, a dry and fragrant Sauvignon blanc, and in disbelief noted that it was ripped of all its pleasant fruity and flowery notes. As I continued onto the sweeter wines, slowly the pleasing qualities of the wine - its complex array of fruit and mineral flavours - shone through the jube-jube sweetness. While the sauv blanc and chard were flat and dead in the wake of a jube-jube, the sweet Sauternes shone through brilliantly. It seemed like a crucially important lesson: wine must be paired with food, not the other way around. The wine suffers from a bad pairing, not the food.

Bonnaire, Blanc de Blancs, Champagne, France (~$55). Perfect way to start the WSET course with a bang (or a "phip" if you open it correctly).

George Michel, Golden Mile, Pinot Mile, Marlborough, New Zealand, 2011 (~$30). Pale ruby colour and light body, this wine's appearance belied its prominent flavours of ripe red berries and fruit. I though it smelled like bad, like musty old basement.

In the afternoon we rushed through seven reds, a Pinot Noir,  a Bordeaux, a Merlot, a Syrah, a Shiraz, a Chianti, and a Rioja. The flavours were generally bolder and more complex than that of the whites, probably due to the tannic effects, the mild spiciness leant by aging in oak barrels, and the more nuanced flavours that come with aging in bottle (like leather, forest floor, and mushroom notes, for example). I was surprised to learn that the Syrah and Shiraz were the same grape, the difference being where they are cultivated (the former in France, the latter in Australia).

Campo Viejo, Reserva, Rioja, Spain, 2011 (~$20). Rioja is where aging wine is both fashionable and regulated. Reserva = aged in oak and bottle. This wine was the best bang for buck of the whole lot.

With daylight waning the day finally culminated in the final exam. I noticed the chef was no longer spitting his wine. Thirty questions of multiple choice, required 21/30 for a pass. Although some of the participants were clearly nervous, the test was thankfully not difficult. I’m confident that everyone passed.

I finished the test and left with my loot bag: six beautiful dishwasher-safe Spiegelau wine glasses. I drove straight to Sunday dinner at my grandma’s for roast beef and Jigg’s. There was wine on the table and as we tucked in I couldn’t help but notice how my aunt lauded the Beaujolais (a light and fruity red which I had learned generally goes better with umami-bombs like the clumsy peas pudding and salt beef on my plate). What’s more, no one bothered to comment on the full bodied and tannic cab sauv blend which sat on the other end of the table (which would naturally taste more bitter and less fruity with such a pairing). Amazing. Level 1 shifted something, it shone a glimmer of light on the mysterious world of wine… but what I really learned was that there's so much more to learn.