Displaying items by tag: WSG Team Favorites

Summary: 

Pairing wine and cheese together, without taking a deep dive into the subject matter, can be dangerous. In this ultimate cheese and wine pairing exercise, explore cheese styles and the wines that pair with them (and don’t) in this interactive session with Master Sommelier Evan Goldstein.

We recommend that you bring along the following optional wines and cheeses with you to the webinar to taste along live with Evan.

Wines

• Sparkling, dry
• Dry white (Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio)
• Pinot Noir (ideally New World style)
• Sweet (late harvest Riesling, Sauternes style, basic Port)

Cheeses

• Fresh (a young goat or ricotta)
• Soft ripened (brie or camembert)
• Blue (Gorgonzola, Roquefort, or Cambozola)
• Hard (Parmigiano, aged Gouda, aged Pecorino)

Presenter: Evan Goldstein MS

Evan Goldstein calls himself “trilingual x 3:” He “speaks” three languages – wine, food, and wine-and-food pairings – and can do so in three languages to boot – French, Portuguese, and English. An internationally recognized authority and educator, Goldstein is a born teacher who has dedicated his adult life to introducing and sharing with others his passion for wine.

One of just 269 Master Sommeliers worldwide, Goldstein has authored four books and co-authored several more. He is also a Founding Board Member of the Best USA Sommelier Association (BUSA, and a contributing editor to the Oxford Companion to Wine (5th edition, publication 2023). Not least, in tandem with business partner Limeng Stroh, Goldstein heads up two companies: Full Circle Wine Solutions (President & Chief Education Officer) and Master the World® (Co-founder & Chief Wine Officer). This (very busy) people-person has a warm sense of humor that has won him friends and fans throughout the wine industry worldwide while spreading the gospel of food, wine, and food-and-wine-pairings through “edu-tainment.” According to Goldstein, you should be able to “laugh while you are learning.”

As a founding board member for the Court of Master Sommeliers, Goldstein, for the last 30 years has been training and examining candidates. Goldstein passed the prestigious Master Sommelier examination at age 26 in 1987, just the eighth American to do so and the youngest ever at the time.

Goldstein’s formal wine and food education began at age 19, working in the kitchens of Restaurant Le Saintongeais and the Hotel Lancaster in Paris, Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley, and Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, California.

In 1984 Goldstein joined his mother, chef, and author Joyce Goldstein, in opening the celebrated Square One where, as sommelier, his wine lists received myriad awards. Together, they went on to co-author Wine and Food Pairing in the Williams Sonoma Lifestyles series (1999). Once bitten by the writing bug, Goldstein wrote the critically acclaimed Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier’s Practical Advice for Partnering Wine with Food followed by a sequel and a book on South American wines.

Today, Goldstein continues to spread the gospel of wine and food. He has been included twice in IntoWine.com’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry,” starting with the debut list released in 2013, and again in 2018.

Books Written by Goldstein:

• Five Star Service: Your Guide to Hospitality Excellence, published by On Premise Communications Inc. (2003)
• Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier’s Practical Advice for Partnering Wine with Food, University of California Press (2006). You can find it here.
• Daring Pairings: A Master Sommelier Matches Distinctive Wines with Recipes from His Favorite Chefs, University of California Press (2010). You can find it here.
• Wines of South America: The Essential Guide, University of California Press (2014) 

Summary:

Aligoté has been getting increasingly more attention in the last 10 years or so in Bourgogne by producers and drinkers alike due to a combination of factors, including climate change and massale selections.

This webinar will focus on Bourgogne’s ‘Second White Grape’ by delving into its history, attributes, viticulture, winemaking, appellations and producers before looking at Aligoté’s larger global presence and potential.

Presenter: Robin Kick MW

Originally from the Chicago area, Robin is a Master of Wine who is presently based in Lugano, Switzerland, where she works as an independent wine consultant, wine judge, journalist and educator.

Following studies in French and English literature, she changed career paths in 1998 when she left her teaching position at the Université de Nice to study wine at the BIVB (Bureau Interprofessionel des Vins de Bourgogne) in Beaune, France and the Université du Vin in Suze-la-Rousse in France’s Rhône Valley.

In the 20+ years of working in the wine business, she has held a number of different positions including wine auction specialist for Christie’s in Beverly Hills, California and fine wine buyer for a pre-eminent London-based wine merchant with an award-winning Burgundy list.

In 2014, after many years of study and a successful dissertation on whole cluster fermentation in Pinot Noir from the Côte d’Or, she became a Master of Wine.

Her main wine passions are Burgundy, Champagne, northern Italy, particularly Piedmont, Switzerland and Jerez.

Summary:

Join winemaker Olivier Humbrecht MW, of famed estate Zind Humbrecht in Alsace, for a deep dive into these key components of winemaking: yeast and fermentation! 

Presenter: Olivier Humbrecht, MW

Olivier Humbrecht studied wine together with wine marketing and wine business for five years in Toulouse, and then got the chance to do his ‘military service’ working for Sopexa in London.  He learned about and enrolled on the MW course, becoming France’s first ever Master of Wine in 1989.  He began to work with his father, and converted the family domaine to biodynamics in the early 1990s.  His father had painstakingly built up a unique collection of hill-site vineyards over the decades, notably clearing and replanting a quarter of the great historic Grand Cru of Rangen de Thann with Olivier in his later school years.  Olivier has continued to build on this, notably with the recent acquisition of a parcel of Sommerberg to complement the family’s Grand Cru holdings in Brand, Hengst and Goldert, and to complement its other holdings of Rotenberg, Clos Hauserer, Clos Jebsal, Heimbourg, Herrenweg and Clos Windsbuhl.

Olivier’s respectful, non-interventionist winemaking, combined with his and his father’s fastidious viticulture, has given the world vintage after vintage of magnificently differentiated, nuanced bottlings: global white-wine references.  He has never stopped experimenting and improving on his work, using biodynamic practices, changed row orientations and re-thought canopies recently to produce a much greater percentage of dry wines than before.

Summary:

Join WSG Academic Advisor Andrew Jefford as he talks to Laura Catena, Managing Director of Catena Zapata, one of contemporary Argentina’s most celebrated and innovative wine-creating companies. 

Interviewee: Laura Catena

Laura’s initial ambition was to help people – hence her medical studies and her continuing work as an emergency and paediatric physician in San Francisco.  From the mid-1990s, though, the energetic and dynamic Laura has combined her medical career with driving the family wine business forward in partnership with her father Nicolas Catena Zapata.

She has been a leading figure in Argentinian wines’ move to ever-higher vineyards, and its search for single-site, terroir-expressive wines.  She is a leading voice, too, in arguing that it is time to move beyond conventional Old World/New World thinking towards a wine scene in which each hemisphere is accorded parity of status -- so that expressive differences between the world's wine regions can be better explored, enjoyed and celebrated.

Summary:

The use of Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), often just referred to as “sulphites”, in winemaking has become a much-debated and even sometimes emotive topic in the 21^st century.

In the last few decades with the growth of the natural wine movement, excess use – or sometimes any use – of SO2 has become increasingly frowned on. Some wine drinkers even claim they are intolerant to SO2, and that they can no longer drink conventionally vinified wines without getting headaches.

This webinar looks at SO2’s properties, and why it is so helpful in winemaking. What quantities are typically used, and which rules and regulations govern sulphur use? We will also dig into the science behind intolerance claims. How many people are really allergic to SO2, and are the normal levels found in wines likely to cause issues or not? And why does just about every bottle of wine on the planet have those words “contains sulphites” on the back – even those made by natural winemakers who claim not to add any?

This session covers the whole spectrum of winemakers and winemaking, looks at the varying attitudes to sulphur usage, and what this ultimately means in terms of the quality and properties of what ends up in your glass.

Presenter: Simon J. Woolf

Simon J Woolf is an award-winning English author and wine writer, currently based in The Netherlands.

An acknowledged expert on the developing niche of natural wine, he's written for Decanter magazine, Meininger’s Wine Business International, World of Fine Wine and Noble Rot, and many other publications. Simon is the editor of The Morning Claret, an online wine magazine which specialises in natural, biodynamic, organic and orange wine.

Simon's first book "Amber Revolution - How the world learned to love orange wine" was published in 2018, and won the Roederer Wine book of the year award in 2019. Simon has also won numerous awards for his magazine features and online columns.

Simon travels regularly to countries such as Georgia, Slovenia, Italy and Portugal, where he continues to research the stories and traditions behind artisan winemaking. His second book, Foot Trodden, a collaboration with photographer and wine communicator Ryan Opaz, was published in October 2021. It is described as a journey deep into the soul of Portuguese wine.

Simon is also active as a presenter, editor, wine judge and translator.

Summary: 

The Fundamentals for Pairing Wine with Food… and Food with Wine (AKA what goes with what and why). Is it wine first? Food First? Or does it not matter? The answers are ‘sometimes’, ‘sometimes’ and ‘yes. it does’.

Join us on this informative epicurean journey and immerse yourself in the guidelines! Grab a glass of wine of your choice so that when Evan speaks of mapping wines, you can do it along with him!

Presenter: Evan Goldstein MS

Evan Goldstein calls himself “trilingual x 3:” He “speaks” three languages – wine, food, and wine-and-food pairings – and can do so in three languages to boot – French, Portuguese, and English. An internationally recognized authority and educator, Goldstein is a born teacher who has dedicated his adult life to introducing and sharing with others his passion for wine.

One of just 269 Master Sommeliers worldwide, Goldstein has authored four books and co-authored several more. He is also a Founding Board Member of the Best USA Sommelier Association (BUSA, and a contributing editor to the Oxford Companion to Wine (5th edition, publication 2023). Not least, in tandem with business partner Limeng Stroh, Goldstein heads up two companies: Full Circle Wine Solutions (President & Chief Education Officer) and Master the World® (Co-founder & Chief Wine Officer). This (very busy) people-person has a warm sense of humor that has won him friends and fans throughout the wine industry worldwide while spreading the gospel of food, wine, and food-and-wine-pairings through “edu-tainment.” According to Goldstein, you should be able to “laugh while you are learning.”

As a founding board member for the Court of Master Sommeliers, Goldstein, for the last 30 years has been training and examining candidates. Goldstein passed the prestigious Master Sommelier examination at age 26 in 1987, just the eighth American to do so and the youngest ever at the time.

Goldstein’s formal wine and food education began at age 19, working in the kitchens of Restaurant Le Saintongeais and the Hotel Lancaster in Paris, Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley, and Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, California.

In 1984 Goldstein joined his mother, chef, and author Joyce Goldstein, in opening the celebrated Square One where, as sommelier, his wine lists received myriad awards. Together, they went on to co-author Wine and Food Pairing in the Williams Sonoma Lifestyles series (1999). Once bitten by the writing bug, Goldstein wrote the critically acclaimed Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier’s Practical Advice for Partnering Wine with Food followed by a sequel and a book on South American wines.

Today, Goldstein continues to spread the gospel of wine and food. He has been included twice in IntoWine.com’s “Top 100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry,” starting with the debut list released in 2013, and again in 2018.

Books Written by Goldstein:

• Five Star Service: Your Guide to Hospitality Excellence, published by On Premise Communications Inc. (2003)
• Perfect Pairings: A Master Sommelier’s Practical Advice for Partnering Wine with Food, University of California Press (2006). You can find it here.
• Daring Pairings: A Master Sommelier Matches Distinctive Wines with Recipes from His Favorite Chefs, University of California Press (2010). You can find it here.
• Wines of South America: The Essential Guide, University of California Press (2014) 

Summary:

In 2009 Prosecco was re-mapped in sweeping changes that created an extensive new zone for the production of Prosecco DOC on the plains of the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia and elevated the traditional hillside growing areas of Conegliano Valdobbiadene to DOCG status, Italy's top denomination.

One of the innovations of the revised "Disciplinare di Produzione" ('production norms') of the DOCG was the categorization of the sub-zones called "Rive"  which are the subject of this webinar.  

We will be exploring the soil and climate features of the Prosecco Superiore Rive zones and matching them to wines which give a revealing insight into the subtle diversity and pure class of an Italian sparkler often perceived as a standardized commercial product.  

Presenter: Richard Baudains

Richard Baudains was born and brought up on the Island of Jersey, a formerly French-speaking part of the British Isles, hence the French surname. To satisfy his wanderlust he studied to become an English language teacher, a profession he has had the good fortune to pursue in many of Italy's top wine regions. He published his first article with Decanter in 1989 and has been writing about Italian wine for the same London-based magazine ever since.

He is a regional chair at the Decanter World Wine Awards, on the team of the Slow Wine Guide for Friuli Venezia Giulia and teaches M.A. Courses on Wine Journalism at the Università delle Scienze Gastronomiche. He has previously led webinars for the Wine Scholar Guild on the wines of the Collio and the macerated whites of Friuli Venezia Giulia. Outside of wine, he works as a Cambridge University English language examiner.  He lives in Gorizia.  

Summary:

WSG Academic Advisor Andrew Jefford welcomes Gigondas appellation President and leading winegrower Louis Barruol of Chateau de Saint Cosme to the latest in our Wine Scholar Guild Live series: an hour of discussion with leading figures in today's wine world.  In addition to his groundbreaking work in Gigondas, Louis also knows the length of the Rhone very well via his 'St Cosme' micro-negociant wines -- and he has partnered with Rick Rainey and Justin Boyette to create Forge Cellars in New York State's Finger Lakes region. 

Don't miss the chance to listen to the views of one of France's most thoughtful, provocative and internationally minded winegrowers!

Interviewee: Louis Barruol

Louis Barruol is the descendant of a family of wine growers who has made wine since 1490. After spending his childhood in Gigondas, he graduated in Economy and Agro-economy at the Universities of Montpellier and Paris. He took over the family property Château de Saint Cosme in Gigondas in 1992, aged 23. He then launched a negociant business called « Saint Cosme » in 1997 and began to develop partnerships with other growers all over the Rhone valley, especially the Northern Rhone.

In 2011 he created Forge Cellars on Seneca Lake in the Fingers Lakes region of New York State with friend Rick Rainey: they began to plant vineyards, build a cellar, vinify and explore the potential of hundreds of plots. This work continues.  In 2019, Louis bought the Château de Rouanne in Vinsobres, southern Rhone: an extraordinary 136-acre property located on the best slope of the appellation. He has been President of the Gigondas appellation since 2017.  

Louis played a lot of competitive rugby and he plays the cello. He is married to Cherry and they have three children: James, Jenny and Alix.