Introduction to Wine
So I’ve been on a break for a while, but I assure you I hadn’t
forgotten about you. I’ve been busily
racking up new and wonderful experiences to tell you about. Go and get the kettle on and I’ll fill you
in.
Where better to start than at a wine tasting, yes another
one but this one’s different, honest! I
received a notification on the book of faces to an ‘Introduction to Wine’ run
by Tristan Darby of the Bristol
Wine School. They’re not your average school, no exams or
detention, just good times and great wine.
I arrived on an average British Saturday, you know the type –
schizophrenic weather. One minute I’m
racing against time (running late as usual) in the blazing sunshine, the next I’m
looking out through a swirl of grey clouds at a sky that’s threatening to ruin
my walk home, bleedin’ weather. Anyway,
to cheer me up there were twelve wines awaiting me…I know, right?! Sod the weather!
We started off with a little introduction from Tristan, a
man in the know but not too eager to shove it in your face. There’s no pompous gesturing or silly air sucking
on these tastings, just practical tips on how to enjoy your wine, the keyword
here is ‘enjoy’. All the wines are
tasted ‘blind’ and although my knowledge of wines is as basic as my knowledge
of the Inner Hebrides (honestly, I only recently
found out they existed) I enjoyed the mystery surrounding the identification of
the wines. Might I point out that,
again, I was surprised at what a snob I am.
I mostly enjoyed the new world wines, I really must desist being such a
wine snob, no offence Australia!
The morning lent itself to white wines, leading nicely into
a glass of fizz, no doubt to celebrate lunch (who doesn’t?) which was included in
the cost of the day. The afternoon
brought with it a ray of sunshine and six varying reds, my favourite (yes, all
of them)! We covered so much in the afternoon
that the course ran over and Tristan adopted a sped up method of speech, it was
like watching ted.com on fast forward and through hazy specs, I guess we can
blame the twelve tipples for that.
As I swayed home I pondered if the number of wines had been
reduced might we have had the time to cover more interesting facts about each
one? But then again, would I have
received such a billy bargain for my bag of silver? Probably, yes.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaku/
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