The Spectator Wine School: New World wines

We had some fascinating wines at the Spectator Wine School’s penultimate class of term this week. The theme was wines of the New World and our poor students had drawn the short straw in that they had me hosting the two hour session. Usually each class is hosted in turn by an expert from one of our seven partner wine merchants with the final class on champagne and sparkling wines being hosted by James Simpson MW of Pol Roger.

Nevertheless, I’m happy to say I managed to muddle through and I like to think the students learned a little and I didn’t parade my ignorance too much (although a savage delivery saw me clean bowled when asked the name of the river that flows through Stellenbosch in South Africa)*. In any event, the wines pretty much spoke for themselves and were clearly greatly enjoyed since the spittoons were as dry at the end of the evening as they were at the beginning.