April 18, 2006

Wine News: Wine course is about thinking and not about drinking

"Make no bones about it — drinking wine is not the same thing as tasting wine, says Angelo Tavernaro.
He is emphatic, and not amused by the lame joke that anyone enrolled in the two-part wine appreciation course he begins teaching Tuesday night on Yakima Valley Community College's Grandview campus would leave in anything less than stone-cold sober condition.

"You have that impression because you come from a drinking culture — that's an American impression," he snaps, biting off the words, which bear rich traces of Tavernaro's native Italian, one of five languages he speaks fluently.

"We'll probably do four or five classes where we taste wine, maybe up to four wines, but no more, less than an ounce a taste — if you tasted eight wines you might get a glass if you're lucky. But you see, it's that perception you have (in America), 'oh, let's get drunk."

Full article here.