WSA Alumni Launch Tasting Group

by Leo Daedalus

The no. 2 pencil dust hasn't even settled on our final exams, but the WSA spring '08 Advanced alumni have already revived their study group. After all that hard work, "I don't want to lose my momentum," explained Barnyard Action co-founder Bob Martin. The group takes its ignoble name from a late-night tasting note tossed off during the initial meeting.

It all began in the midst of the Advanced course, when several of us observed that while we were getting good at pulling out distinct aromas or flavors, we were often at a loss to put a name to them. We needed more experience making the connection between the contents of the glass and the contents of our memory.

Accordingly my wife, Anna, and I invited our classmates over for dinner. About half a dozen took the bait, each bringing a wine from a region we had previously studied. We arrayed the table with a generous smorgasbord of scent and taste referents: cherries, currant preserves, pears, hazelnuts, licorice, spices, chocolate, gooseberries, green peppers, and many other usual suspects. We even had a bowl of dirt and a leather bag.

As we went through our joint tasting, we compared our impressions of the wines with the spread before us. The process was not always conclusive — we were all certain we had found pear in one pour, but it bore no resemblance to the halved bartlett we were passing around on a saucer. Clearly we needed a table ten times bigger. Better yet, an entire grocery store.

Nevertheless, we learned a great deal. Those in our group who had never had black currants, for example, enjoyed a genuine Aha! moment when we got to the St-Emilion and passed the cassis preserves around. And no one could deny, when Anna found green olives in the Viognier, that the actual picholines corroborated the association.

More valuable even than the smorgasbord of food referents, however, was the simple experience of joint blind tasting and group discussion. Clearly, nothing would hone our skills better than regular tastings together, particularly given the common language we share in the systematic WSET tasting method. Thus was Barnyard Action reborn as an ongoing group.

The first post-class gathering was held at Bob and Krissy Martin's home, with an Italian theme. Seven of us convened, each bringing a secret Italian wine. These were bagged for blindness and numbered according to a basic ordering system, to ensure that we would not be following, say, a Ripasso with a Verdicchio. Additionally, we handed out tasting note sheets based on the WSET forms to keep us on track as the evening progressed.

We're committed to keeping Barnyard Action from devolving into just a fun social gathering. It's important that it continues as a rigorous program of joint learning. We're doing this because we love wines, and because the more we learn, the more we find we don't know. What might be a daunting project for an individual is a great voyage of shared discovery among a group of dedicated enthusiasts. And, of course, tremendous fun.

For more information, or to get in touch about participating, visit the Barnyard Action blog at barnyardaction.blogspot.com.