Wine 1001

Since the beginning of the year, Master Sommelier Chuck Furuya has been hosting wine education classes on Sunday evenings at Vino. Though Vino normally opens to the public at 5:30pm, the wine classes start at 4:30pm and usually last 1 hour. As an added bonus, Vino discounts food costs by 20% if you remain for dinner. He names each class for the month hence October's classes were Wine 1001 (ten-oh-one).

Our first three wines were all whites tasted blind and the usual questions posed to the class are "do you smell fruit" or "do you smell earth"? Does the wine taste of fruit or mineral? What's the concentration? How intense is the wine? Do it flow evenly on the palate?

On this evening he then served a Goat Cheese Bruschetta and asked us to taste the wines again and vote which wine paired the best with the food. Of course, to make things fair, I tried to spread the goat cheese evenly over the bruschetta and made sure each bite had a piece of red and yellow pepper. my favorite was wine #2 which was a Domaine Delaille Sauvignon Blanc "Unique" which was a classic pairing for goat cheese.

Next up was three reds with and without Bresaola (air and salt cured beef). My favorite here was the Chateau de Lascaux "La Grange de Lascaux" Syrah though I felt that the bresaola was secondary to the rich, creamy cheese within.

Our sheets for taking notes...

Chuck mentioned that he's probably following this format for the rest of the classes this year - try the wines alone first and evaluate them then sample them with a selected dish.

Then we adjourned downstairs for dinner along with our own wines...