WSET Level 1

In Wine Tasting & Beyond by SpencerLeave a Comment

Overview

There are a variety of courses out there to help you learn about wine and one of the more popular is WSET, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. This is a great place to start if you are looking to learn about wine and/or become a sommelier

Recently completing the level 1 course myself, there are various sections that you will probably go through. In case you are curious about the material, here is an overview of the material covered during my course:

  1. What is Wine?
  2. Growing Grapes
  3. Making Wines
  4. Types and Styles of Wine
  5. Principal Grape Varieties
  6. Examples of Wines
    1. Wine List Exercise
  7. Storage and Service of Wine
  8. An introduction to Tasting
  9. Tasting Notes
  10. Pairing Wine and Food

I thought the course was well structured and already knowing a decent amount about wine, I still learned a lot. Some of my key notes from the day were:

  • In a very cold year, Champagne will not release a vintage, but instead will make a “non-vintage” which is a mixture of this year’s crop and previous year’s stock to create a blend to match their traditional taste
  • Considerations for what makes up a sub-climate
    • Distance to the equator (I may not be the smartest as this was the only obvious one to me)
    • Proximity to large bodies of water (hot or cool breezes coming off of this water)
    • Altitude (Barossa vs. Eden Valley)
  • Physically peeling the skin off a table grape and tasting it to get a good sense of the flavour tannins bring to a wine. Then tasting the skinless grape after being peeled and it is much sweeter than you expect
  • Fermentation takes roughly 4 to 8 days
  • Red wines are typically more expensive than whites because of the cost of oak barrels
  • Rose is not typically aged, but I still don’t know why
  • After a barrel is used once, it will no longer provide the flavour notes of vanilla, cedar, toast when using it to age wine
  • New oak gives a wine fuller body, the full donut analogy below!
  • Mouthfeel Donut analogy
    • Cabernet Sauvignon gives you the donut in your mouth….. Sounds awesome right!? What this means is the outer ring of your mouth, so the side of your tongue by your cheeks, the tip of your tongue and the back of your tongue
    • Merlot gives the middle of the donut or in Canada, the Timbit, which means the middle of the mouth
    • Blending these two varieties can give you a beautiful “full-bodied” flavour
  • Wines in the New World are named after the grape varietal and in the Old World are named after the region
  • Wine can only be called “wine” when between 8% and 15% alcohol, after that it becomes a Port (from Portugal) or Sherry (from Spain)
    • Above 22% it becomes a spirit
  • Champagne is usually a blend of 3 grape varieties
    • Chardonnay
    • Pinot Gris
    • And another pinot something
  • Champagne still has yeasts present when you drink it, and this can give a toasty or sourdough flavour. I thought this was quite nice!
  • White Zinfandel is a popular Rose in the US, with low alcohol
  • Fortified wines add high strength alcohol to kill the yeasts and cut off fermentation before the yeasts can eat all the sugar
  • Balance – is the balance of sweetness and acidity. A good way to understand this is by mixing lemon juice and adding something sweet to it. It balances out and then tastes kind of good
    • If you drink the sweet juice on its own, it is probably too sweet and if you drink lemon juice on its own, then it is probably too sour
    • It’s all about balance! Too much acidity makes the wine taste awful and too little makes it taste flat
  • Light-bodied wines feel more delicate in your mouth and less viscous
  • Tannins cause your mouth to feel dry
  • When drinking wine, you can gauge the acidity by how much your mouth waters afterward. If your mouth doesn’t water at all, then the wine probably has low acidity, and the inverse is true for high acidity

Principal Grape Varieties 

These are the ones that we covered in my course and here are my notes:

  1. Chardonnay
    1. Medium to high acidity
    2. Fermented to dry
    3. Chablis Region within Burgundy is 100% Chardonnay using no oak and is a cool climate
    4. The white grape of Burgundy is 100% chardonnay, uses oak and is a warmer climate
    5. Cool climate flavours: Green Apple, Green Fruits, Lemon
    6. Warm Climate flavours: Stone fruit, pineapple, peach
    7. Champagne “Blanc to Blanc” means it is made from 100% chardonnay
    8. Champagne “Blanc to Noir” means it is made from 100% Pinot Noir
  2. Sauvignon Blanc
    1. Medium-bodied, dry wine with high acidity
    2. 100% cool climate, flavours: Green Apple, Lemon
    3. If the climate is somewhat warmer, you might get more veggie flavours including asparagus and/or green peppers
    4. Typically not matured in oak
    5. Popular regions for this wine are New Zealand and Sancerre
    6. The Sommelier teaching said “this is the wine we all love to hate” which is curious. I’m not a fan of it usually and now it sounds like many others aren’t either, so I wonder who is drinking this..
  3. Pinot Grigio from Italy or Pinot Gris from France
    1. Light bodied with high acidity and typically dry
    2. Not matured in oak
    3. Italian version: pear to citrus flavours, higher acid and picked earlier than France counterpart
    4. France version: more stone fruit flavours coming from a slightly warmer climate
  4. Riesling
    1. This wine can be dry, medium-dry (off-dry), or can be sweet. The full spectrum!
    2. High acidity, especially to offset the sweetness
    3. Flavours: lemons and limes, floral, peach
    4. Light to medium-bodied
    5. Rarely put into oak
    6. Classic grape of Germany, Alsace in Franch and Clare valley Australia (I’ve been here)
      1. Riesling Freak is an awesome brand from the Barossa where I met the winemaker luckily one evening. He names his wines by number and has about 11 different wines. However, number 1 was never used as a label for the longest time, until 2017 when he finally made the perfect Riesling #1. Check him out
  5. Cabernet Sauvignon
    1. Thick skin providing high tannins; High acidity
    2. High acidity and considered full-bodied (DONUT Mouth)
    3. Matured in oak providing flavours of cedar and vanilla
    4. Flavours: Blackcurrant, black cherry, mint apparently, and herbs (herbaceous) like green bell pepper
    5. Frequently blended with Merlot to soften out the tannins and give the full mouthfeel
    6. Bordeaux is the famous blender of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon
    7. Brand new oak is almost always used for Cabernet
  6. Merlot
    1. The medium grape! Medium acidity, Medium tannins and medium to full-bodied
    2. Flavours are your red fruits and some black fruits. This means strawberries and plums mixed with blackberries and black cherries
    3. Often matured in oak which can add vanilla and cedar notes
    4. Grown globally, in Chile, Australia, California and of course Bordeaux
  7. Pinot Noir
    1. Low tannins and light-bodied
    2. Red grape of Burgundy and popular grape of New Zealand
    3. Flavours: red fruit, so Strawberry, red cherry, raspberry
    4. Often matured in oak providing hints of vanilla and clove 
  8. Syrah/Shiraz
    1. Syrah in France and Shiraz in Australia
      1. A winemaker from Barossa told me this was because of the Aussies at customs. They couldn’t read the details properly and made up Shiraz from the faded label of Syrah. Maybe they thought it sounded better. Sounds like classic Aussies though. They make up all their own words
    2. High tannins, medium acidity
    3. Flavours: think Jam! Jammy black fruits! Black pepper and usually vanilla from aging in oak
    4. Côtes du Rhône does amazing GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvèdre) so a portion is Syrah; Otherwise, Northern Rhone is 100% Syrah

French Wine:

Champagne – distinctly from this region, has notes of bread flavours because of the special fermentation process which creates the pressure and bubbles. Dry, high acid, green fruit. The yeasts are actually still in the bottle which is what gives it that toasty flavour. Traditionally a blend of these 3 varieties:

  • Pinot Noir
  • Pinot Meunier
  • Chardonnay

Sancerre – Never oaked, high acid, medium body, dry of course and green fruit. The grape is Sauvignon Blanc. 

Chablis – Never oaked, high acid, light-body, dry of course and green fruit. Can you guess the grape? It’s Chardonnay. I remember this and the grape of Sancerre using the first initial which matches the variety

Bordeaux – Ana (my girlfriend) is from Bordeaux. Not really, she’s from Slovenia, but that’s how I remember the two red varieties of this region. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot! 

Sauternes – A sweet white made in Bordeaux from botrytis mold which shrivels the berries, consuming the other contents within the berry except for the sugar and acid. This causes the grape to be highly concentrated and awesome. Also known as Noble Rot, which you may see as part of the name of similar wines. Full-bodied, with stone fruit flavours, plus honey and typically oaked.

Burgundy – The wine can be white (Chardonnay) or it can be red (Pinot Noir). The Chardonnay is allowed to be oaked and is left to the chateau’s discretion. The French word for Burgundy is the other name you might see for this region: Bourgogne. 

Beaujolais – Creates wine from the Gamay grape variety. This is a red wine that is unoaked. Similar characteristics to Pinot Noir. It can taste a little sweet apparently.

Côtes du Rhône – Region in France with my favourite wine blend GSM

Here are some details about this region that I found on Wikipedia and thought were interesting:

***From Wikipedia***

The rules for the proportion of main, supplementary and accessory grape varieties are the following:

  • White wines: a minimum of 80% of the main grape varieties.
  • Red and rosé wines:
    • The main grape variety (Grenache noir) must make up at least 40% of the blend for wines from the south of Montélimar.
    • The supplementary grape varieties (Mourvèdre and Syrah) must together make up at least 15% of the blend, although this rule is not applied to small producers who produce their own wine from less than 1.5 hectares (3.7 acres) of vineyard area.
    • The main and supplementary grape varieties must together make up at least 70% of the blend, and the accessory grape varieties are therefore restricted to a maximum of 30%.
    • Marselan is not allowed to make up more than 10% of the blend.
    • The total proportion of white varieties (all of then accessory) may not exceed 5% for red wines and 20% for rosé wines.

The rules for the red wines mean that varietal (100%) Grenache noir may only be produced by small producers under the Côtes du Rhône appellation. North of Montélimar, varietal Mourvèdre and Syrah wines may be produced.

***From Wikipedia***

Châteauneuf-du-Pape – An expensive wine with lots of complexity. High alcohol, full-bodied, red fruit notes and usually oaked. Sounds delish!

Armagnac – My brother actually sent me this while I was putting together these notes. It was not part of my course, but it sounds pretty sweet. I can’t wait to try it! Here are some key takeaways if this is new to you too:

  • France’s first brandy and packed with flavour
  • Made in the Gascony region and can be made from ten different grape varieties
  • Baco 22A, Colombard, Folle Blanche and Ugni Blanc are the ones typically used
  • Similar to brandy in that it is only distilled from white wine grape varieties
  • Different from brandy in that it can only be distilled once, whereas brandy needs to be distilled twice
  • Massive price differences between the different bottles of Armagnac is due to aging in oak barrels
  • One last little Timbit is that Cognac is to brandy what Champagne is to sparkling wine. Make sense? What this means is that Cognac is a brand and has to be made within the specific region in France, whereas brandy can be made anywhere in the world

Wines From Spain:

Cava – The “champagne” of Spain. It cannot be labeled champagne though, so it has to be called sparkling wine. It can be made as a red or white sparkling wine.

Rioja – Sounds like a delicious wine, with red fruit notes, a full-bodied taste and it is typically oaked.

Sherry – This is a fortified white wine and can be made with a variety of sweetness levels to match all tastes. Since it is a fortified wine, you can expect high alcohol

Other Wines:

White Zinfandel – Classic Rose wine from California, where they love the red fruit notes, the low alcohol and the medium sweetness. It is of course unoaked

Chianti – is from Italy with love! It boasts tannins and acidity, with notes of red fruit and is traditionally oaked

Port – A fortified wine that is typically made as a red and is always from Portugal. High alcohol and traditionally sweet, it comes with notes of black fruit and lots of tannins. 

Storing Wine, Serving Wine, Tasting Wine Guide, food pairings and tips for the test will be in Part 2!

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