Taking Wine to the Next Level

Taking Wine to the Next Level

WSET has just released the 2017 revision of the highly acclaimed Level 3 certification course, and I'm very pleased to say that we will be offering the new course in Miami beginning January 14, 2017. This is an exceptional program that gives the passionate consumer or dedicated trade professional a solid grounding in the world of wine and leads to one of the most highly prized certifications in the industry, I'll be teaching this six-day course with my good friend and WSET mentor James Cluer, MW. Don't miss this chance to share in a life-changing wine experience!

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Pairing wine in the real world

Pairing wine in the real world

An interactive dinner in which guests cook alongside six star chefs gives ample opportunity to explore the mysteries (and the joys) of pairing wine and food. First up, a challenging combination of rich veal and foie gras dumplings with shaved vegetables in a tangy umami-laden dressing.

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Back to Nature

Back to Nature

Champagne Pommery cellar master Thierry Gasco says he has finally decided to release a Champagne with no added sugar, a "brut nature." However, he isn't doing this with his entry level wine; he is going for the gold with his top-of-the-line Cuvée Louise. But can he make his best wine better by leaving something out?

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Now that is a BIG barrel

A favorite game among wine lovers is trying to trick friends with questions about barrel size - just how big is a puncheon, after all? And how many bottles are in a hogshead? And what is a pipe of Port? Barrels come in dozens of sizes, some fairly standard and other sizes used in in a single region. The traditional hogshead is about 238 liters, but in Cognac a hogshead holds  around 215 liters, and in Madeira, a hogshead is even smaller. Whew!

The very large wine barrel at Château Peuch Haut

The very large wine barrel at Château Peuch Haut

The closest we have to a barrel standard is the "Bordeaux Barrel" or barrique that holds 225 liters, or 300 normal sized bottles of wine. This barrel is almost a meter long, and about 69 cm in diameter, which stands in rather stark contrast to the barrel Gérard Bru of Château Peuch Haut in the Languedoc region of southern France announced this week. He had a local carpenter build him a barrel that is 12 meters long, six meters in diameter and weighs more than 40,000 kilos empty. And it holds 300,000 liters of wine, which is 400,000 bottles. That's a lot of wine.

Bru says he won't fill the barrel though - he wants to make an event space out of it and hold tastings and parties inside it. So now we will have toasted guests who are themselves barrel fermented, after a fashion.