Friday, April 29, 2011

Today I Am A Sommelier, Well Sort Of

On Monday and Tuesday I participated in the Court of Master Sommolier's Level One Certification course and exam. It was both interesting, scary and, at times, very boring.

There are only about 175 Master Sommoliers in the entire world. Along with the 100 Masters of Wine (another certification program), they make up the top wine geeks in the entire universe. I have a lot of respect for these people who have to learn a lot of arcane, but interesting, information. One of my friends in the wine world call this whole set up useless. Anyway, this course and test is the entrance exam to reach the lowest rank in this nomenclaturaof the wine world.

The class started at the ungodly hour of 8AM with a flight of wines to warm up. It also introduced us to the scoring system used by the Court in evaluating wines. One of the most prized skills of most Soms is the ability to name wines blindly. It is a skill that can be learned and through the frequent tastings (4 the first day, 3 the next) we surveyed the wine world and learned the markers for varieties and locations, This was very interesting.

We then started the classroom review of the wine world. This was the dreadful. It was extremely boring. Having just completed 5 weeks of wine studies, the classic wine regions were all review. There were some new world regions that we discussed that I would have loved to discussed further, like Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Argentina, but as we wizzed by all regions, these were given short shift.

We completed our whirlwind tour of the beverage world with a review of spirits, beer, and wine and food parings. The spirit world was fascinating, as I had no idea about any of this. We learned about how England almost collapsed as a result of the Gin revolution and about the Whiskey rebellion of the 1790s. Great stuff! Food and wine paring was redundant as we did two days of this in the Immersion program, and after all, I am a trained chef who has been doing this for 20 years.

At 4:3) on day 2 we took our exam. Thank God we only needed 60% to pass. That meant 42 out of 70 questions. The first question was where was the Edna Valley located. As this is a favorite region of mine, I knew where it is located, but it was an indication of what was to come. We were asked about obscure appellations from obscure wine producing regions. And I am eternally grateful to Robert McPherson from my Immersion program for telling me what's in Drambuie (honey and whisky). It was one of the hardest tests that I have ever taken in my entire life. I can only imagine what level 2 is like.

I passed, along with everyone else who took the class and test that day. Of my 4 fellow immersion program attendees who took this exam, 2 went on the next day to take level 2, only one passed. In fact, only about half passed the next level. There you need to do a blind tasting of two wines, a service practical, and a brutal test on theory. Again, you need 60% on all three to pass. Eventually, I will take this test, but after 2 months of school, it's time to find employment.

Was it worth it. I think so. I am now certified by both the CIA and the COS as having a significant base of knowledge in wine and beverages. In the COS course, I tasted some great wines from regions that I have never tasted before, and found some that I really enjoyed. If all this helps me get a job, then it will really be worth it.

Thanks again for reading my blog.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Passover Musings on Kosher Wines and Israeli Wines

For those of you who don't know, today is the first day of Passover. Part of the traditional celebration of this holiday is for Jews to drink four glasses of wine during the course of the Seder. Where I come from, that means sweet wine that is truly dreadful.

This is no longer the case as there are winemakers like Jeff Morgan at Covenant Wines who are making kosher wine from some of the best vineyard sources in the Napa Valley. I was privileged to take a course from Jeff where we tasted his top of the line red blend along with his chardonnay. To paraphrase an old car commercial, this is not your father's kosher wine.

But I digress. As I am not Kosher, we have always had non Kosher wines at our passover Seder. One of my unexpected finds was bringing a 10 year old Lenz Long Island Merlot to a Seder at my sister in law's house and finding the the wine was terrific. Wish I could say the same about the other kosher wines I had that night.

It has been the habit of Wine Spectator to publish an article on Kosher wines to correspond with this time of year. In the past several years, there have been ever increasing stories about how Israeli wines have been improving by leaps and bounds. As someone who's synagogue sold sweet wines by Carmel (Israel's largest producer) as a fundraiser, I was extremely skeptical.

Well, we found ourselves in Israel over the summer of 2009 and had to investigate this first hand. Armed with Daniel Rogov's comprehensive book on Israeli wines and a large Hammond map of this country, we plotted a day of wine tasting int he Judean Hills outside Jerusalem.

Before I go any further, let me describe this country for those who have not been there. It is very small, like the size of New Jersey. We flew into Tel Aviv airport and were in Jerusalem in 30 minutes. We had just crossed one of the widest parts of the country.

During the first 10 days of our trip, we sampled wines all over the country. Most are Kosher, and most are not available in the US. Barken seemed to have the widest distribution, and they made very pleasant wines, that matched the very interesting food of this region.

After seeing all the standard sites of the country, it was off to the Judean Hills. With at stop at the local Hertz office to pick up a car (driving in Israel is not for the faint of heart. Think NYC on steroids), we navigated our way from Tel Aviv to the Latrum interchange on Highway one. It fast became apparent that our day in Israel wine country was not going to be like going up to Napa or Sonoma for the day.

Making appointments was easy enough. We emailed the wineries from home, gave them where we were staying and our cell  phone number. Now we had to find these wineries.

Our first stop was Clos de Gat, located in Harel. We found Harel, but no winery. So we called them on the phone. The response was so classic. Go back to the main road, make a left on the dirt road by the tracker shed and then look for the three trees. We did find it. No signs, to marketing materials, no nothing. This is a winery that scored 92 points in Parker for their chardonnay and 90 for their Syrah!

Oh, did I mention that it was hot? Very hot. Of the 14 days we were in Israel, it was over 100 degree on 13 of them. It peaked at over 120 when we were at the Dead Sea. So we get to Clos de Gat, and they had a tasting set up for us outside overlooking the vineyards and the Ella Valley, where David supposedly fought Goliath. It was too hot, inside we went. The wines were spectacular, but that may have been the atmosphere as well as the wine. We ended buying, and shipping home, their Har'el Chardonnay and Cabernet.

Being we were getting the hang of how difficult it was to find our way around this wine region, and not wanting to wander into the Left Bank, we asked directions from Clos de Gat to Castel. Now Castel is one of the true pioneering wineries in Israel, and one of the first developers of classic varietals in the Judean Hills. So it was back to the main road, a left at Beit Shamsh and then we had to find a dirt road. We missed the turn off, we ended up on a dirt road and up the side of a mountain.

After picking our way back to the main road, we found the correct turnoff. The road circled the side of a mountain and we ended up in a small village. We saw what appeared to be a winery, but we could not find an entrance. We had to circle the winery several times until we found the entrance. Again, no signs or any other indication that this was the place. Mind you that Castel has also received 90 point ratings from both Parker and the Spectator.

This winery was Kosher, so as we descended the stairs into the cave we had to put our hands in our pockets because as non-Sabbath observing Jews, if we touched anything we ran the risk of making the wine non-Kosher. And coming in from 100 degree heat, the cellar felt so good that I would have tied my hands behind my back to enjoy the coolness of the room.

Castel makes 3 wines, a chardonnay, a right bank blend call Petit Castel, and a Bordeaux blend called Grand Castel. We were tasting the 2007 versions of each. The chardonnay was very good, the reds even better. We became wine club members to get free shipping of a case back to California. The tasting also featured some fantastic local Israeli Cheeses. The food here is worth a discussion on another day.

Our final visit was to Flam winery. And guess what, there as a sign, small as it was, that directed us to the tasting room. There wines were blends of local grapes with ones from the Golan, several hours away. We enjoyed their Flam Classico, a 50/50 blend of cab and Merlot from both the Judean Hills and the Golan, and were hooked up with their US importer so we could purchase a case here.

As I sat on the Tel Aviv beaches reflecting on this experience, I had to agree with the Wine Spectator that the wines were truly interesting, they were also definately new world in taste and texture. I also was gateful for my son's patience as we dragged him along on this adventure. When we next venture to this part of the world, we will go to the Golan as well.

Last night, we broke out our last bottle of Glos De Gat Cabernet Sauvignon to drink at our Seder. With that in mind Hag Sameah to everyone, and thank you for reading my blog.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

The More I'm Immersed, The More I Need Immersion

I have always loved wine. I love the romance, I love the process, I love all the background and stories that go with it. It truly becomes more than a beverage, but a story in a glass.

I also found out that the more I learn about wine, the less I know.

After 25 years of traveling to wine regions on 3 continents, schlepping up and down all the wine regions of California, and most of all, having recently lost my job as a Food Service Director, I decided that I wanted to know more about wine. So I did what many baby boomers have done and went back to school.

The question now is where to go. In the SF Bay area there are two very reputable culinary schools offering two very different professional wine oriented courses, Professional Culinary Institute in Campbell and Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. As St. Helena is 20 miles closer to my house, and the course was only 5 weeks vs. 8, CIA it was. I always wanted to go to CIA anyway.

The course is 5 weeks long and it is very intense. You start with a three day introduction to the wine business, and then you have two days dealing with the Sensory Analysis of Wine. Math for the first course and chemistry for the second. After these preliminaries you go right into the meat of the program, Mastering Wine for two weeks.

Week one is with Master Instructor Karen McNeil. It is an intensive week dealing with four of the great varietals, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. The field trips we took totally confirmed my intuition that taking a wine program in the Napa Valley was worth the money and the time. We studied the effects of different barrels on Chardonnay with the head winemaker at Franciscan Cellars. On Wednesday we studied blending at Rudd. Thursday found us at Domaine Carneros doing an intensive tasting of Carneros pinot noirs with the winemakers from Domaine Carneros and Truchard Vineyards. The last day is was a vertical of Shafer Hillside Select cabernet sauvignon with Doug Shafer and his winemaker.

Each afternoon after lunch, Karen conducted a varietal specific blind tasting. Here we worked a learning the key signposts of each varietal. Believe it or not, even with spiting after each taste, at the end of the day we were exhausted.

Next week was Mastering Wine Two with John B. Here we looked at Riesling, the Aromatic Whites, Zinfandel and Syrah. Our field trips included private tastings with Ehren Jorden at Faila and Bernard Seps at Storybook Mountain. The Riesling day was a Revelation as I finally learned how to read a German wine label, and I learned how flexible a wine Riesling truly is, it matches well with just about everything. Syrah was interesting and I finally learned how to recognize it in a glass, think bacon.

Week four was a wine tour of Italy. Day one was Burgundy and the Rhone, both interesting and enjoyable, day two found us in Bordeaux in the morning, Champagne and the Loire in the afternoon. As I've lived for the past 17 years in California, I have drank mostly wines from California. After two days classic wines from France, I think I finally get old world wines, they tell a story of place within the glass. The winemaker in Bordeaux does not make a Cabernet Sauvignon based wine, he makes Bordeaux. That being said, I still have a new world pallet, but I can appreciate old world wines.

Day three of this week found us tasting the wines of Germany, Austria and Alsace. Again, the German wines were fantastic and truly food friendly. Alsatian wines are great as I have always enjoyed them. What I did not know until I entered this program was how hot and dry Alsace really is.

Day four was the day that turned my wine world on end and totally convinced me that I will never ever learn all there is to learn about wines, even if I live to be 120 years old. We spent the day tasting the wines of Italy.

Italy has always been a mystery to me. It still is, but I know have the clues on how to find my way out of it. Italy has their own homegrown vinifera grapes, with each region using only those grapes native to that area. There are 13 regions, all with their own varietals. Sound confusing, trust me it is.

 In the morning we tasted sparkling wines of Francacortia and the reds of Piedmont. In the afternoon, the wines of the Veneto and Tuscany. I am sold. I will now go through life drinking Brunellos, Barbaras, Barolos and Barbarescos for the rest of my life. They were the most food friendly red wines, all of them with tremendous amounts of acid on the pallets.

The last week was not as exciting as the previous ones. We dealt with wine service for two days and food and wine pairing for the last 2 days.

And on the last day we sat for the Certified Wine Professional exam. I have several thoughts. First is that I think I may have been able to pass the written test without the course, but there is no way that I could have passed the blind tasting without the training. For those curious about what we tasted they were a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and the funkiest Syrah that I have ever tasted.

The second thought was that I could not believe that the course was finished. I was privileged to be part of a great program with some truly awesome classmates. We all challenged and pushed each other in expanding our wine knowledge. I wish them all well, and I miss being in class with them.

The final thought for this program, was it worth the time and money. The answer is yes, but it only scratched the surface. This class left me wanting more, and wanting to be part of this wonderful world. And that is where I am today.