Category: WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma

God’s plan: Château La Courançonne 2012 Côtes du Rhône Villages Plan de Dieu

Posted on by Josh

Château La Courançonne 2012 Côtes du Rhône Villages Plan de Dieu[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 6: Rhône]

“Plan de Dieu” is one of the named villages of the “Côtes du Rhone Villages” appellation, much like Rasteau and Gigondas and Vacqueyras once were before graduating to their own AOPs. I also think it’s the creepiest sounding one, and I’d love to both know the story behind it and also keep a bottle on hand every time someone tells me something is part of “God’s plan”. Then I can, in just an ominous whisper, say “no, this is part of God’s plan”, and then subsequently uncork the bottle without breaking eye contact. And then get really drunk. It’s foolproof – to what, I don’t even remember or care.… read more

WSET Diploma

What was once my university spring break drink of choice: Famille Perrin 2013 Tavel

Posted on by Josh

Famille Perrin 2013 Tavel[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 6: Rhône]

I wasn’t a big partier back during my time at university, though there was that one spring break during second year where a friend invited a group of us to her beautiful house on Vancouver Island. I’m talking about a house overlooking the docks, a bathroom where you can poop while dreamily viewing the ocean and clouds, and bowls of jellybeans on every side table. I don’t know why the jellybeans part sticks with me so much.

For some reason, I thought Tavel would be the perfect choice (while everyone else went for the sensible hard liquor and beer route), and though it wasn’t really what I expected for a rosé (at the time), it was still a delicious choice.… read more

WSET Diploma

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” – The Beatles: Alain Graillot 2011 Crozes-Hermitage

Posted on by Josh

Alain Graillot 2011 Crozes-Hermitage[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 6: Rhône]

We had just three wines in our first flight (this was the third), and all were from the northern Rhône, we were told. The first was obviously a Viognier, but the second and the third were clearly born of the same idea, if not grape. Though the wine was clearly more youthful from just the looks of it, it also smelled more playful than its previous, with more intense aromas of flowers and riper fruit to replace the smoked meat.

Hermitage is the rare and more famous appellation and hill, of course, and even by looking at a map and seeing how Crozes-Hermitage surrounds Hermitage like a donut, we can predict off the bat that slopes here aren’t as dramatic.… read more

WSET Diploma

Breakfast in a glass, pt. 2: Delas 2009 “Seigneur de Maugiron” Côte-Rôtie

Posted on by Josh

Delas 2009 "Seigneur de Maugiron" Côte-Rôtie

[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 6: Rhône]

This wine was basically breakfast in a glass part 1 with its toast, coffee, and marmalade sort of deal. If you were wondering. Enter part 2! We still have toast on the breakfast menu for this wine, but toss in some smoky peppered bacon and toast with blackberry jam. And then replace the citrus marmalade with something leathery. (Or something.)

The appellation from which this wine comes is the northernmost tip of the Rhône, where gravelly soils extend from Beaujolais. Viticulture is almost as expensive as it gets, with low yields and sloped vineyards, leading to necessary terraces and obligatory manual harvesting.

Like Condrieu to the south, plantings were relatively low as recent as the 60s and 70s but boomed in the 90s, in this case, due to Guigal and Robert Parker.… read more

WSET Diploma

Bach Cello Suite No.1 in G: Domaine Louis Clerc 2011 Condrieu

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Domaine Louis Clerc 2011 Condrieu

[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 6: Rhône]

I’ve gone on and on about how I’ve never had a Condrieu. Huzzah!

If old world Sauvignon Blanc reminds me of a violin solo with taut and delicate strings, old world Viognier reminds me of the cello’s smooth purr. Finesse and restrained charm is still there, but if lower pitches strain your ears less, then lower acid does exactly the same for your mouth. California and Australia also enthuse over the grape, but that’s where they can get less Bach and more Meghan Trainor.

Condrieu is the classic area for Viognier in France, where the oily wines are balanced with finesse and more structure than their new world equivalents.… read more

Life · WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace

Posted on by Josh

Right now, I’m forcing myself to post at least one picture and story about something I’ve done since last class that really isn’t about diploma class, so here’s a picture of spirits I got to taste on Granville Island (before quickly moving to the nearest café to study the rest of Bordeaux). Finding time to enjoy blue skies during a day on Granville Island is literally almost impossible in Vancouver, so I took full advantage of it. My only regret is not snapping more pictures of colourful falling leaves, like a tourist, or a teenager who’s taken up photography enough as a hobby to start a Facebook page for his pictures and then stop updating it a month in. I’m sure that was me at one point, and perhaps worse?… read more

WSET Diploma

Salted caramel ice cream and pride glitter: Domaine René Muré 2007 Riesling Vorbourg “Clos Saint Landelin” Sélection de Grains Nobles

Posted on by Josh

Domaine René Muré 2007 Riesling Vorbourg "Clos Saint Landelin" Sélection de Grains Nobles[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]

I’m sad I didn’t have more time to spend just tasting minuscule sips of this wine, whose colour I haven’t seen for a wine in a very long time, and the same colour you’d swear was more akin to sherry than a Riesling. Add a Sélection de Grains Nobles wine to the list of wines that are so rare, such that getting to taste one is simultaneously enough and not enough.

Fuck.

It was reminiscent to the first wine in our flight of three, in that there was a real evolved pomaceous fruit character, with bruised red apple and dried pear that met with dried peaches, some apricots, honey, spice, mushroom, and apple jam.… read more

WSET Diploma

“Chelsea Dagger” – The Fratellis: Trimbach 2012 Riesling

Posted on by Josh

Trimbach 2012 Riesling[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]

Continuing on our speed tasting train. This is the brightest wine of our flight of three, and also the palest. Our flight of three was obviously chosen to display three different styles or quality levels of Riesling (the Alsatian grape we hadn’t tried yet in that session), the one previous to this being a Grand Cru Alsatian Riesling, this one being one at the regular Alsace AOP level, and the third being a Grand Cru Sélection de Grains Nobles.

This is a great example of its style, where bright Alsatian Riesling is mouth-commanding and almost abrasive, reminding me of a young and irritatingly chipper business-forward politician or Daenerys Targaryen.… read more

WSET Diploma

Liquid autumn and potpourri: Domaine Eblin-Fuchs 2010 Riesling Rosacker Grand Cru

Posted on by Josh

Domaine Eblin-Fuchs 2010 Riesling Rosacker Grand Cru[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]

We literally start the last flight of three wines with six minutes left in class, so everyone’s struggling to speed taste, sort of like that scene in the first book of Harry Potter where Hermione has to figure out what potion Harry has to drink in order to make it through to save the world from Apothic Red, or whatever. They may have cut that scene from the film?

Originally there were simply three appellations for Alsace, and you may still very well group them in that way: there’s regular Alsace, there’s Crémant d’Alsace (sparkling), and then there’s the Grand Cru appellation which implies higher quality than the regular, but of course it’s still a subject of controversy.… read more

WSET Diploma

On the list to retry: Zinck 2012 Muscat

Posted on by Josh

Zinck 2012 Muscat[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]

At this point in time we’re halfway through the wines that we need to taste and we’re being a bit rushed. It doesn’t help that my stomach, for some reason, is angry with me. Ahh!

A grapey and floral aroma reminiscent of a subdued and more elegant Gewurztraminer is my benchmark for tasting Muscat blind, but burnt hair and matchsticks are my benchmarks for sulphites. By this point I was rushing and had too little wine in my glass before I could reassess, so retrying this wine is something I need to do. The general consensus was that there was some sulphitic character in the wine that needed to blow off.… read more