I signed up for a six-month wine course offered by the Wine & Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a UK-based educational body that provides education and training in wine and spirits. The course I joined is the Level 3 Advanced Certificate in Wines and Spirits. While most of the WSET courses here are taught in Japanese, the thought of learning the names of French chateaus and German grapes in katakana seemed a bit counter-productive, so I was glad to see that this course has a single slot taught in English. Better still, the instructor is none other than my friend and client James D., a fellow eminently suited to the job as he brings to it both an encyclopedic knowledge of wine and a wonderfully charming English accent.
We meet once a week on Mondays in Ginza for two hours. The first hour or so we cover the topics for that week (the history of wine, viticulture and vinification, etc.) and then in the second hour we taste 5-6 wines. (The second half is really the better of the two.) Much of this course involves learning how to properly taste wine using a systematic method, and later we will be required to identify wines based on our tasting experience and a basic knowledge of the wines of the world.
The course goes through to October of this year. I’m really looking forward to learning a lot more about wine and the opportunity to learn from someone as knowledgeable (and pleasant to listen to) as James. As we’ll be launching our own wine site sometime in May the timing really couldn’t be better. More details on that later…