Category: WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma

Wooly Bully: 2009 Domaine des Baumard “Clos Saint Yves” Savennières

Posted on by Josh

2009 Domaine des Baumard "Clos Saint Yves" Savennières[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

One of my wine friends convinced me to buy a Savennières for Thanksgiving. I was really on the fence on spending that much on a wine (school is expensive!), but through several points including celebration, treating myself because of my new certification, and Thanksgiving itself, I decided to go for it. And so I slowly nursed a bottle of 2007 Domaine des Baumard Trie Spéciale to myself on (Canadian) Thanksgiving. I’m sure no one else around me would have enjoyed a bottle that tasted like cream of mushroom and delicious wet winter sweaters.

Savennières is a small appellation in the northern part of Anjou, where dry and concentrated wines from Chenin Blanc are made.… read more

WSET Diploma

Bubble-less Champagne: 2010 Château de la Gravelle “Gorges” Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie

Posted on by Josh

2010 Château de la Gravelle "Gorges" Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

I’m straight up not the type of person to write home about Muscadet. The wine comes from the leftmost stretch of the Loire Valley in France, created by a neutral and fresh grape which can gain complexity from chilling on dead yeast cells, resulting in more texture and flavour. Its wines can often be bland and light on the nose with an old world monochrome template of mineral, green fruit, and hints of yeast. But the best examples, like in this wine, are much more expressive on the palate, with the yeasty, savoury, and bready components staging a complex dance on the tongue. You can tell that there’s much more texture which comes out in the viscosity and creaminess.… read more

WSET Diploma

The antithesis of Apothic: 2009 Charles Joguet “Les Petites Roches” Chinon

Posted on by Josh

2009 Charles Joguet "Les Petites Roches" Chinon[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

The last time I’ve had an old world Cabernet Franc was over a year ago when I had a Saumur-Champigny in class (wine class, that is). I’m sure I’ve forgotten what the classic example tastes like which is a weird shame because the style of wine, on paper, seems relatively uncomplicated and definitive: raspberry-dominated with red fruits, pencil shavings and perhaps brettanomyces amongst the earth, leafy greens, a medium depth of colour and body, and noticeable but reined tannin.

Maybe I’m not used to more aged examples – or just better examples in general – of the style, because the wine seemed much more full-bodied and in the darker black cherry fruit range than I expected.… read more

WSET Diploma

Rosé from Gris: 2013 Domaine de Reuilly Rosé

Posted on by Josh

2013 Domaine de Reuilly Rosé[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

A rosé from Pinot Gris, a grape that normally makes white wines, might be strange to some people, though the pink-skinned grape can make wines familiar to some people in the local BC market. Producers like Nichol and Kettle Valley come to mind right away: I wonder if the winemakers have been inspired by such a small region with an esoteric style – if that were the case, then that’s pretty awesome, knowing that this kind of rosé isn’t an overdone style that’s executed to make money. It’s a nod and a twist and a sashay.

I’m glad we tried a wine from Reuilly, because it’s one of those tiny appellations often eclipsed by the big boys in its respective area, like Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.… read more

WSET Diploma

The quietest Sancerre that ever was: 2012 Pascal Cotat “Les Monts Damnés” Sancerre

Posted on by Josh

2011 Pascal Cotat "Les Monts Damnés" Sancerre[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

The previous wine in this flight was a juicy and exuberant Loire Sauvignon Blanc. This second wine was the complete opposite, with super-restrained flavours hiding behind a shield of acid and maybe just a hint of texture. Everyone and I thought this was a Muscadet, which is a Loire wine made from the super-neutral Melon de Bourgogne grape. The grape is moulded into a textured and yeasty wine by processes involving storing the wine over fine lees (dead yeast cells), so all of it made sense, and almost everyone thought this was one of acceptable to good quality – lifeless but satisfactory.

So it turns out this was a 63-dollar wine from a well-reputed producer.… read more

WSET Diploma

Coteaux du who Sancerre what?: 2011 Henri Bourgeois “Terre de Fumée” Coteaux du Giennois

Posted on by Josh

2011 Henri Bourgeois "Terre de Fumée" Coteaux du Giennois

[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 2: Loire Valley]

Second sesh of Unit 3 and we get Sauv Blanc in the first of our flight again, and despite how obvious the grape can seem, I always seem to slip it up. I thought it was some really weird Muscadet at first – which is inherently neutral – but then I went back to this one after smelling the second wine and I shamefully crossed out my first guess.

Coteaux du Giennois is down there with Quincy, Reuilly, and Menetou-Salon as the forgotten hard-to-pronounce children of the Central Vineyards in the Loire, overshadowed by the better-known and much more fashionable Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. Coteaux du Giennois is one of those extras you never think you’re gonna come across – so much that I didn’t bother taking notes on this area during my big Loire marathon last week – but hey: it turns out one or two of these wines exist in our market.… read more

Life · WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 1

Posted on by Josh

Dear Diary,

Like some sort of academic pregnancy, I will subject the next 9 months of my life to some form of patient growing of what is hopefully my knowledge of wine. And I will subsequently hope that, somewhere, my diploma will be birthed out of a printer in the UK by some person whose accent sounds equally as charming as it is foreign – yet familiar, like fusion cuisine or a fucked up awesome bottle of sparkling Jura.

I can feel it already – I won’t have time to write to you about people for whom my heart beats, and instead I’ll be on my knees begging the Gods to reveal to me why I can’t tell the difference between a Grecian Xinomavro and a Piedmontese Nebbiolo.… read more

WSET Diploma

I don’t even know why I guessed Hermitage: 2011 Emiliana “Coyam”

Posted on by Josh

2011 Emiliana "Coyam"[Tasted during WSET Diploma Unit 3 – Week 1]

I don’t even know why I guessed Hermitage, because I’ve never had one, and there’s no way they’re going to display something that rare (in this market) and expensive on the first day. But sometimes it’s almost like designing (or maybe I’m just watching too much Project Runway in between my tasks which results in garbage fashion analogies), because given the circumstances, it’s important to make it look (or taste) expensive. Or something like that. Maybe ignore this paragraph.

The reveal of Chile seemed so obvious, afterwards, though before landing in the northern Rhône I did venture a Touriga Nacional-based blend from Portugal, if that gives you any more idea about how punchy yet spicy and earthy this was.… read more

WSET Diploma

Chiantioja: 2002 Lopez de Heredia “Vina Tondonia” Reserva

Posted on by Josh

2002 Lopez de Heredia "Vina Tondonia" Reserva[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 1]

Yeah! Rioja stunner on the first day.

In the first few wafts of the wine, you get this intoxicating and familiar savoury soy characteristic which sort of masks the dried red fruit and makes it seem more brooding than it is. That soy quality is a common benchmark in aged Rioja, for sure, but there’s something about this that yelled Sangiovese to me. Both Chianti Classico and Rioja Reserva see oak, though the former sees a minimum of 7 months while the latter sees a minimum of 12 months. Oak is still something I struggle with, and I’m sure there’s a wood joke in there somewhere that I’m not going to bother venturing because it seems suspiciously easy.… read more

WSET Diploma

And we’ll never be royals: 2012 Maison des Bulliats Régnié

Posted on by Josh

2012 Maison des Bulliats Régnié[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 1]

It only strikes me now how overlapped the Venn diagram between Gamay and Barbera can be – both tend towards high acid and spicy red fruit, though both also grow differently and can be vinified differently in different subregions. Purer red fruit, for example, in Barbera d’Asti, and a bit spicier and darker in Barbera d’Alba, sort of like how you can get estery Gamay from Beaujolais Nouveau over to the earthier and grittier cru Beaujolais like this one. And suddenly my Sansa Stark = Cru Beaujolais and Arya Stark = Barbera d’Alba analogy sort of makes more sense.

This wasn’t as complex as a Sansa Stark though. Spicy red fruits, yes, and a nice glowing acidity, but mostly fresh, and just fresh – and sometimes it’s hard to be a fresh red.… read more