Class

So, the new food and beverage director has begun our wine classes. Attendance is voluntary the first class was in my dining room on Tuesday. Here's a couple of things I learned.

1. The higher the alcohol content in a glass of wine the warmer the climate it was grown in. How do you judge alcohol content? You look at the viscosity (legs) on a glass of wine.

2. A greenish tint on a glass of white wine suggest a young wine.

3. Banding in a wine (various shades of color) suggests age.

Just a few things that I found interesting. So, you know the scoring that is given to wine from Wine Spectators. Yeah, there's no logic to that. It's just men sitting around judging a glass of wine like you would a wet t-shirt contest. I guess I wasn't so far off for ignoring those scores.

To end the class we had a blind tasting. Two bottles were brought out wrapped in tin foil and we all gave our impressions of the varietal, vintage and where it came from. For the record I nailed both of them with the exception of vintage. The first a California Chardonnay the second a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Here's why I love this. Hello, information folks. Learning the components on how to judge a glass of wine is fascinating. Being in a room when the subject of conversation is wine is fascinating. And surprise of surprises I have a pretty good palate.

Another tidbit I learned. Out of eight restaurants on property mine has the highest wine sales by a very large margin. When it was broken down by server I am the highest. How weird is that? And how kick ass, I'm not going to lie my ego is floating on air.

I'm going to love this!!