The world of wine tasting is a weird and wonderful place. How many times have you listened to someone else’s description of a wine and thought, “what in the world is this person thinking?”
One of the problems with wine evaluation is finding good education on the subject. And even then we are often limited by our location as to wh ich courses we can attend.
The University of Stellenbosch’s Department of Viticulture and Oenology, together with Getsmarter, a specialist online training company, recently presented the first Certificate in Wine Evaluation course via internet-based distance learning to almost 300 students throughout South Africa. Says Robyn Allan, the Marketing Manager for Getsmarter, “We even had interest from as far away as New York, London and Japan”.
The course runs for 10-weeks and is presented via a combination of an interactive Internet-based learning system and face-to-face practical tasting sessions. This course combines theoretical learning with practical application and includes 2 wine tasting sessions held in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.
This part-time course allows for flexible study time for students and full time employees and is suitable for both wine professionals as well as those with a keen interest in wine. 40% of the students from the previous course were directly involved in the wine industry such as winemakers, wine marketers, wine distributors etc; a second 40% of the students had a general interest in wine, and the remaining 20% were mainly involved in the restaurant industry. Participating restaurants included Le Quartier Francais, Belthazar, Salt Restaurant and The Twelve Apostles Hotel. Over 65% of the student group were based in Cape Town and surrounding areas.
The course covers a number of topics, including the history of wine; viticulture; basic wine making; storing and serving wine; food and wine pairing; International Wine Production and most importantly the evaluation of wine.
Students are also exposed to over 70 different samples of wines during the course, including International wines, which are tasted at the first and second workshops as well as in the comfort of their own homes/offices. Students receive 18 samples of wine to take away, taste in their own time and discuss their opinions and findings in the “virtual classroom” made possible via the internet.
If you enjoy wine evaluation and would like learn more, the next Stellenbosch University Certificate in Wine Evaluation Course starts on the 8th September 2008. Please contact Candice on 021 683 3633 or candice@getsmarter.co.za. Alternatively, visit www.getsmarter.co.za.
Funny thing about wine, you never ever forget that knowledge at all. I did wine promoting for a while when I was younger, it was really interesting and we even got to keep whatever we didn’t use after promotions, bonus!
Seriously though, even just for interest, learning about wines is a very good thing to have and comes in handy when you’re staring blankly at the row of Sav Blancs trying to decide what to get.
That reminds me, I can’t remember when I last had wine – must have been at least a week ago, sheesh.
Totally, I love reading up and learning about wine, but I’ve actually got a new interest, I want to start going to art exhibitions! Going to blog about it a bit later and see who knows what :)
Sam, from GetSmarter, is an awesome guy, people interested in wine, should really get hold of him and chat about this course!
I have attended both the Getsmarter and CWA introductory courses and I really enjoyed the interactivity on the internet that Getsmarter make use off. No need to attend time consuming classes … :-)
Ah nice one Johan, this is exactly the sort of thing we want people to come in and let us know!
Gave a look at the wine courses offered by winecampus.org. Registraion is free and you can take up a free online trial class.