Ashburton Wine School

Weekend Wine Appreciation Course

Tutors: Charles Trevor-Roper, Sue Crabtree

This two-day course offers you the chance to taste and discuss wine with a group of like-minded enthusiasts. It is not a training course; it is a great opportunity to improve the way you as an individual can appreciate every new wine you encounter. It will help you develop your own sensory memory for wine and the ability to identify what elements of taste you really like. The course is suitable for wine enthusiasts at all levels of experience. Above all it is great fun, is there anything better than spending a weekend drinking and discussing really good wine with a group of friends?

Each course uses the wines from a specific area to demonstrate the great variety of taste experiences available, and focuses on indigenous grape varieties, using the best examples of those varieties available on the UK market. On Saturday morning, nine white wines are tasted blind, and through group discussion everyone gets the chance to develop their own appreciation skills, to support this we are very careful not to autosuggest what tastes you might be getting from the wine – you make up your own mind! We also discuss what food might go with each wine. Over lunch in the kitchen we try the wines again with food and discuss how effective they are in matching the regional menu.

On Saturday afternoon we move onto the red wines of the region tasting a further nine / ten wines – these are tasted in groups of three, giving you the chance to compare three wines at the same time, in order to further develop appreciation skills. Local ham and cheese is available to soften the effects of the wines and to identify how the taste of wine changes in the presence of food.

On Sunday morning the group plays Balderwine. This helps you to really use the appreciation skills you have developed on the Saturday. Nine wines are tasted blind, all having definite links to the wines tasted on the previous day, and you try to identify the grape variety and country of origin of each wine – this is not as daunting as it sounds, there are clues and it is great fun. The weekend finishes with a regional lunch in the kitchen offering the chance to taste the red wines with food.

Over the weekend you will taste wines with a retail value of about £500, have information sheets on every wine, have handouts on wine and food matching, have your own set of 6 ISO tasting glasses, have two splendid lunches, and just have a great time with a group of like-minded people.

Certificate from Ashburton Cookery & Wine School