Summary: This session focuses on techniques you can use to enhance your blind tasting skills. Justin will discuss some of the tips and tricks he employed to pass the Master of Wine; the most challenging wine tasting exam in the world. Justin will share some exercises that you can try at home to build your own tasting skills, as well as discussing the most effective ways of writing

Curious about Wine Scholar Guild trips, dear reader? I’m no expert on wine tourism, but I have been fortunate enough to go on five (!) WSG trips: Alsace, Champagne, Languedoc-Roussillon, Loire, and Rhône. Below I share my thoughts on why these trips were so great and why I keep coming back for more.

Synopsis: An opportunity to look at the reasons behind the incredible success of Provence rosé and how it has become the leader in quality rosé wine, we’ll discuss how the region’s unique heritage and terroir combined with the expertise of its winemakers have created - and continue to create - a style thathas become the global benchmark in rosé wine. Understanding the three sub-regions; Côtes de Provence, Coteaux d’Aix en Provence and CoteauxVarois en Provence,

How did that happen? Call it what you want (fashion, peer-group pressure, herd instinct, a historical hangover) but somehow or other Alsace has ended up as France’s most neglected and misunderstood wine region.

Summary: Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil, increasing biodiversity above and below ground, improving the water cycle, enhancing ecosystem services, supporting carbon sequestration, and increasing resilience to climate change. Regenerative viticulture is farming vineyards based on the understanding that the health and

Water: the source of life Since our return to Alsace ten years ago, my wife Céline, my daughter Zoé and I never tire of walking the countless hiking trails that crisscross the Vosges, often offering breathtaking panoramas of the mountains and the Alsace plain. On the days when the sky is at its purest, even the snow-covered summits of the Alps can be seen in the distance on the horizon.

We recently caught up with Justin Martindale MW, our Membership & Community Manager, to find out what’s happening in the WSG Membership program and how it all gets put together.

Summary Join Benoît Marsan PhD, Professor of Science and Wine at the Université du Québec à Montréal as he explores one of wines most crucial components - alcohol. Often over-simplified and regularly misunderstood, the affect of alcohol on our experience of tasting a wine as well as the stability of a wine should not be ignored. We're delighted to be able to offer such an insightful event from one of the world's leading experts on the subject, exclusively to

In this webinar we will take a deep dive into the fascinating world of carbonic maceration, from early origins to present-day variations and applications. We will compare ‘conventional’ aerobic fermentation of crushed grapes with anaerobic intracellular fermentation of whole berries, and examine the differences between carbonic maceration, semi carbonic maceration, and fractional carbonic maceration. We will identify some of the “Old World” regions

Summary: Join us for a fascinating and thought-provoking exploration of old vines and old-vine wine. Master of Wine and co-founder of The Old Vine Conference, Sarah Abbott will explore the genetic, cultural, ecological and qualitative value of old vines and heritage viticulture, and will explain why the old-vine-wine category has gathered so many influential advocates in recent years. Abbott co-founded The Old

Summary:  Oxidative, oxidized, reductive, reduced...what do they all mean? Join winemaker Nova Cadamatre MW, as she dives into the Oxidation/Reduction spectrum, what it is, what it means, and how it impacts wine flavors throughout a wine's life.   Presenter: Nova Cadamatre MW  A winemaker with a broad and diverse background, Cadamatre started in wine on the East Coast as a winemaking apprentice with Stargazers Vineyard in 2003. After graduating from Cornell

Summary: Join us for the latest in our ever-popular 'Beyond the Basics' series. From Ice Wine to Botrytis, Passerillage Pantelleria, there is a plethora of different styles and methods involved in producing these heavenly nectars. We are delighted to welcome back Nova Cadamatre MW to lead this session for a deep-dive into the processes and potential pitfalls involved in making great dessert wines.  About the Speaker: A winemaker with a broad and diverse

Summary: In this video, Justin and Chris explore ageabilty in rosé wines by tasting two vintages of the esteemed Clos Cibonne winery in Provence. They discuss ageabilty, quality, oak and how to spot aged characteristics in this style of wine. About the Speakers: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin passed the notoriously challenging MW tasting exam with the Madame Bollinger Award,

Summary: The 'Beyond the Textbook' series seeks to get under the skin of specific varieties and regions from around the world. Here Justin tastes 3 amazing, but very different style from Viré-Clessé. It's Chardonnay, but not as you know it... Details of all three wines can be found in the attached pdf About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin passed the

Summary: In this video we taste three exquisite examples of Semillon/Sémillon from France and Australia, each with a really nice bit of bottle age. Justin recaps some of the textbook knowledge about this grape variety, as well as the key winemaking and viticultural factors that give the wines their unique personalities. We also cover some blind tasting tips about how you might tell these wines apart from other similarly styled examples from around the

Summary: This video explores some of the key techniques in tasting red wines, that enable you to make an objective analysis of its quality, and also take the first steps towards identifying the variety and where in the world the wine comes from. This one is designed for those of you who don't have a huge amount of wine tasting experience and want to get to grips with the basics. Details of all the wines are in the attached pdf. About the

Summary: This is a nuts-and-bolts introduction to some basic white wine tasting techniques, aimed at those of you who don't have a huge amount of prior tasting experience. Here we'll discuss some tips for how to get the most out of your white wines, and take the first steps into how you might decipher a grape variety and an objective quality assessment of a wine. You can find all the details of the wines in the pdf download above. About the

Summary: In this video we'll taste 3 different Chardonnays of different styles, quality and origins, and see how we might make some arguments for deciding the variety, where in the world they come from and how good they are using evidence from the glass. All the details about the wines can be found in the pdf link above. About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin

Summary: In this video Justin and Chris explore the world of Rosé, sharing tips and techniques around how to taste quality and starting to make arguments for logical regions of origin. We cover colour, winemaking signatures and what makes a great Rosé through a tasting of three very different wines from the south of France.  Full details of all the wines can be found in the pdf document above. About the

Summary: In this video we'll taste 3 different Syrahs of different styles, quality and origins, and see how we might make some arguments for deciding the variety, where in the world they come from and how good they are using evidence from the glass. All the details about the wines can be found in the pdf link above. About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin