4 Things I Learned During My First Wine Education Class
As part of Cornerstone's amazing education program for its employees, my colleague Lesley and I had the opportunity to attend our first wine education class together at Corkbuzz Wine Studio in Chelsea Market. Since we work with wine all day, it was great to learn more about what actually goes into making this stuff. We also had the opportunity to taste through some of the most common varietals and learn about their distinguishing characteristics. If I took anything out of the Wine 101 class, it's that I'm still very much a beginner. Here are four other things I learned:
Wine serves as a connection to the world around you: Until I began working in the food and wine industry, I didn’t realize how linked wine is to heritage, culture and the great wide world around me. A bottle of wine is a reflection of a particular region’s terroir and traditions. By pairing a wine with cuisine native to its area of origin, you can really get a beautiful snapshot of what this region is like, without even having to leave your city. A bottle of wine serves as a beautiful expression of the personality behind a particular country.
You can learn a lot about a wine before you even taste it: One thing is for sure – I really need to work on improving my sense of smell! Watching our instructor work his way through the six wines we sampled and explain to us some of the notes he was inhaling – from plums to cinnamon to charcuterie to leather – I couldn’t believe how much he was picking up. Just by determining these aromas and going through a mental checklist in his head, he was already able to come up with a pretty good assessment of if the wine was from the Old or New World, as well as the type of varietal it was.
The right glass of wine can make an ordinary meal extraordinary: I’m excited to learn more about food pairings. When you can find the proper harmony between a dish and its complementing wine, the whole dining experience is heightened and it awakens all of your senses. This is why sommeliers are so important in the restaurant scene! They want to help their patrons experience that “magic” with their meals.
Enjoying wine can be an incredibly intimate and personal experience while simultaneously being a moment shared with family and friends. Wine is usually a drink served at parties, social gatherings and among family and friends. I love how you can enjoy a wine among the company of great people, while at the same time you are enjoying the wine in your own way, letting it take over your senses and creating your own tasting experiences with it.
Needless to say, my interest in wine has definitely grown since my first class, and I'm already looking forward to taking my next one.
