Wine Appreciation

Join us for our interactive Wine Appreciation Course. In our classes, you will learn about wine over twelve evenings with the help of Pirate G and his talented team of Wine Educators and Experts. The aim is for you to explore and discover your own favourite styles in a fun and relaxing environment. Pirate G believes that at the end of the course you will be able to select a great bottle wine tailored to your occasion, correctly communicate your likes and dislikes, and develop the confidence to pair food with wine to enjoy with friends and family.

The series begins by looking at the fundamentals of wine tasting, including knowledge on glassware, wine storage and wine preparation for tasting. We will look at factors that influence the balance of wine, learning about alcohol, tannins, acidity, aroma, structure, texture and flavour. We strongly believe that “blind” tasting can tell you a lot about a wine, and for this reason, you will learn the techniques of how to judge and describe wine through using only the nose, mouth and eyes.

Good tasters must have a solid database of all the classic grape varieties, including where they are grown and how they tend to taste and smell from each place. Pirate G believes that understanding the Old World Classics will give you a better appreciation of the great wines which are made elsewhere in the world, since the New World wine styles and identities usually follow those that came before them. The following eight sessions are therefore dedicated to studying different grape varieties from their respective Classic key regions, and contrasting the differences with those produced in the New World. Throughout the series, we will also provide you with tips and techniques on reading and understanding wine labels. The main purpose of these sessions is to enjoy harnessing your natural tasting ability and increase your confidence in tasting while applying your observations to facts about the provenance of the wines.

In the final three sessions, the focus will be on demystifying the process of reading a wine list. You will learn how to select a bottle, whether for a business lunch, or to impress a date, or to know if your date is trying to impress you. Pirate G will share his techniques as well as some of his personal favourites. And last but not least, we will discuss the philosophy and general rules of how to match wine with food, as well as how to break them.

We have designed this course with a mission to enhance your life and dining experiences by sharing our knowledge and expertise on food and wine. In order keep things exciting, some of our classes will be either held at or catered by one of the top gastronomic restaurants, personally selected by Pirate G. This is to ensure that you will have an enjoyable time gaining both the technical knowledge and practical experience of exploring different styles of wine with different types of cuisine. Nibbles and canapes will also be served at each class before dinner, along with plenty of water.

The course will follow the programme outline below, with the emphasis firmly on learning through taste.