Thanks for stopping by at our new blog!
We're always busy travelling around the country teaching classes and hosting events but sometimes we just want to get something off our chest or pass along little snippets of info that will help you make more informed decisions about selecting and enjoying the wines you love. Send us your questions too and we'll do our best to answer them right here!
One of the wine world’s great mysteries is why more people don’t drink more Dessert and Fortified Wines. After all, this hugely diverse category offers some of the most delicious, most luscious, most instantly gorgeous wines on the planet. Wines such as the rich, thick Muscat de Beaumes de Venise from France’s Rhone Valley. Or the lighter, but no less deliciously hedonistic, and certainly great value, late harvest Botrytis Semillon coming out of Australia.
Last time I wrote I exalted the merits of trying new wine styles and broadening your palate. If you are shopping around and testing out new ranges at various different wine shops and off-licences and supermarkets keep a sharp eye out for the vintages on labels. There’s no doubt that our budgets for socialising and entertaining are far more curtailed than ever before. Maybe it's as a result of this that I’m seeing more and more instances of wines on shelves that are either past their best or certainly at the tipping point. €15 on a bottle of wine is no longer an everyday occurrence and most budgets will be significantly lower than this.
Over the last number of weeks I have done many wine tastings and wine evenings around the country. It’s been fun meeting everyone on Friday and Saturday evenings, at last count we have tasted wine with just over 300 people in two months! One of the questions I’ve been asked a number of times as our tasting concludes is “What is your favourite wine?” Both on the occasions of the question being asked and indeed in consideration of the same question right now I find myself struggling for a single answer or bottle of wine.
The fact that my job is also my hobby & passion gives me such an opportunity to
So with a bit of time on my hands over the last few days I decided to try out a bread recipe I’d recorded from Michel Roux Jr.’s appearance on the BBC – “Great British Food Revival”. Two replays of the technique later and with a recipe download from the BBC website and I headed to the shops to pick up some ingredients. Not many required but ‘strong flour’ appeared on my shopping list for the first time. Also requested was – fresh yeast. I still haven’t tracked any down despite dropping into a few bakeries along the way. Instead I picked up two substitute dried/fast acting yeasts.
So the word is out & it’s official! WineCourse.ie has received WSET approval as a new provider of their courses for Ireland! Needless to say we’re all delighted. The team is now busily planning the remainder of our Autumn season of courses around the country.
The revised Autumn season will include a selection of the WSET Foundation & Intermediate Certificate courses and as always we will be providing the courses throughout the country.
The addition of these courses comes following the many requests of past students on our “One Day Wine Appreciation Course”.
Every so often at events we get asked: “so how many apples are added to make this wine apply” or “at what stage do they add the blackcurrants to the Cabernet”. While seasoned wine drinkers may smile, it’s not surprising that a novice taster might pose such a question. Confronted daily by newspaper wine columns, magazine food & drink sections and various online resources that introduce colourful and descriptive adjectives, it is reasonable for a novice wine drinker/taster to conclude that somewhere along the way the winemaker might be adding tobacco, leather, strawberry or some other ingredient to their grape juice, depending on the aromas detected and described.
While everyone is starting to enjoy bbq weather the team at WineCourse.ie are busy preparing our next season of successful courses. As is now customary we are taking a short summer break from teaching - we typically find that the combination of school holidays and get away breaks mean that people are less committed to courses until normal life resumes in September.
So now that Christmas has passed once again and New Years celebrations already seem like a distant memory why not make some New Year’s (Wine) Resolutions? As part of your new year’s resolutions why not start to record thw wines you tried and in particular the wines you really liked. This doesn’t have to be anything too fancy. Start with basic notes and build up from there. So did you enjoy a particular wine over Christmas? Did you jot down the name? Or save the label? No? - Then dash out to your glass recycling bin and fish out your favourite tipples from the season.
There are so many different occasions that take place over Christmas and each one necessitates its own particular style of wine(s).
Christmas is the ultimate party season. At times it may seem daunting when faced with the challenge of deciding what wine to buy for groups of people, particularly with so many different styles of wine & your guests differing palates for wine, consider also the style of party food that you will be serving during the party. Some simple tips when choosing wine for parties would include:
WineCourse.ie Twitter
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China's Wine Indusry Ripens: http://t.co/ZM2UqtaT http://t.co/kHJh4JlV
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Threats to this years US Ice Wine production: http://t.co/LOF71PzL
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Tablet computers take wait out of waiting tables: http://t.co/GK5DqQyZ http://t.co/3NR9CM6F
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Which celebrity/tv chef will you be tuning into for Christmas tips and inspiration?
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Tastings, Events & Courses around Ireland. A perfect stocking-filler this Christmas: http://t.co/69QPgT4G
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RT @jay_at_hollands: How about an X-Factor Final Special... We have 2 bottles of Pinot Grigio for €10!!
