Wine, Wit, and Wisdom

We had a wonderful time at the 41^st Annual Conference of the Society of Wine Educators, held August 10-12, 2016 at the lovely Red Lion Hotel on the River, located on the Columbia River in Portland, Oregon!

Below you will find some pictures, presentations, and handouts provided by our wonderful speakers—the next best thing to being there!

Roger Bohmrich, MW

The Crystalline Beauty of Riesling: A Comparison of Global Styles—presented by Roger Bohmrich, MW: On Saturday afternoon, Roger Bohmrich, MW presented a comprehensive class of Riesling. The session began with a discussion of the characteristics of the Riesling vine and its suitability to various climates. Next, the class focused on the wines themselves: highly aromatic, highly acidic, sometimes dry and sometimes with a bit of RS, but almost never blended with other grapes.

As an introduction to the tasting portion of the class, Roger presented a taxonomy of Riesling styles—ranging from cool climate”just ripe” wines through intermediate and warm climates all the way up through ice wines and wines produced with botrytis-affected grapes. The tasting portion of the session began with New World Riesling, and included wines from Australia (Eden Valley and Clare Valley), Oregon (Willamette Valley), Washington State (Columbia Valley), Canada (Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula) and New York State (Finger Lakes).

The next portion of the tasting featured the benchmark Rieslings from the Old World. This tasting included wines from Germany (the Mosel, Rheingau, and Rheinhessen regions), Austria (the Wachau and Kamptal areas), and France (Alsace). For details of the wines and the slides of Rogerâ’s session, click here: The Crystalline Beauty of Riesling-Bohmrich-SWE 2017

Alan Tardi

Way Beyond Bubbles: Terroir, Tradition and Technique in Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG—presented by Alan Tardi: On Saturday morning, Alan Tardi told the story of the modern history of Prosecco, from 1876 when enologist Giovanni Battista Cerletti founded the Scuola Enologico in Conegliano, through the 1948 creation of the Bellini cocktail (Prosecco and fresh peach nectar) at Harry’s Bar in Venice, and all the way to the creation of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG in 2009.

The session continued with in-depth discussion of the climate, soils, and topography of some of the more specific Prosecco-producing areas such as Conegliano, the Rive di Farra di Soligo (in Valdobbiadene), and the Cartizze Sub-zone. The tasting included many interesting styles of Prosecco, including tranquile (non-sparkling), those using a percentage of indigenous grape varieties, several single-vineyard wines, and wines that underwent the second fermentation in the bottle (including one bottled “col fondo” [without disgorgement]). For more details, see the presentation here: Prosecco-Way Beyond Bubbles-Presented by Alan Tardi

Sam Scmitt, CS, CSS, CWE

Taking Root: The Renaissance of Chardonnay in Oregon’s Willamette Valley—presented by Sam Schmitt, CS, CSS, CWE: On Friday morning, Sam Schmitt, CS, CSS, CWE, told the story of Chardonnay in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The class began with a discussion of the geologic history of Oregon and the formation of the soils—marine sediment, volcanic basalt, Missoula alluvial, and windblown loess—for which the area is now known.

The class then focused on the history of Chardonnay in Oregon, and revealed on surprising note: that the narrative that early Willamette Chardonnay was a failure is a great over generalization and exaggeration. Rather, the truth is that Chardonnay in Oregon experienced a long learning curve to determine what viticultural and winemaking procedures worked best for the grape in Oregon—similar to the process for “perfecting” the “Oregon style” of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. The truth is, many early examples of Oregon Chardonnay were excellent.

The wines improved overall over the decades as many different clones and selections of the Chardonnay grape were planted. Some of these hailed from France, others from UC Davis, and many were promulgated by the founders of the Oregon wine industry, from David Lett to Bethel Heights. For more details on the session, as well as the wines included in the tasting, see the presentation here: Taking Root – Chardonnay in the Willamette Valley-presented by Sam Schmitt

We will be posting many more conference recaps in the days to come, and will create a permanent record of them here.

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Today we have a guest post from Jim Laughren, CWE who gives us his impressions of last week’s SWE Conference. 

Reflections on SWE’s 41^st Annual Conference from Jim Laughren, CWE

The 2017 Portland Conference of the Society of Wine Educators was one of the best events I have ever attended, a sentiment that I realize I have expressed more than once in past years. Unquestionably, Shields and the SWE Home Office crew, as well as the Executive Committee and Board Members work extremely hard to maintain the high standards of the conference. They assure that personable, qualified speakers present sessions of genuine interest and, occasionally, enlightenment. All as it should be, and usually is.

But like most SWE members, I have attended many wine seminars and conferences through the years, some excellent, some good, some that could have been missed. Speakers have ranged from teachers of outstanding ability to others less adept, even if equally enthusiastic. And of course, there’s been the random bonehead or ego maniac at the podium, no doubt to make us appreciate the good ones even more.

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This year, however, in flipping through conference pics and paying closer attention to my surroundings in sessions that I attended, an overlooked aspect of SWE’s program came clearly into focus. I’ve often felt that the Society conference is unique but other than “bigger” and “more” I wasn’t sure why. Lots of wine gatherings and seminars feature prominent speakers; incredible lineups of wine are practically de rigueur.

What, if anything, truly sets the SWE conference apart from all other such conclaves? The answer, I have come to realize, is the audience.

Not the fact that we rub elbows with other aficionados or that one needn’t have more than a serious interest in things vinous to be included, not even that it’s practically impossible to tell the professionals from the amateurs among those in the crowd, though all such aspects are wonderfully important. What’s truly unique about this conference is the number of speakers and presenters who delight us at their session, only to slip quietly into the audience at the next.

Look around—the MS and the MW and the industry headliner who all dazzled at their own presentations are sitting in everyone else’s sessions, whether led by a newly minted CSW or an uncredentialed student of some other region or aspect of wine.

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Go to almost any wine conference open to both pros and the public and your only sighting of the big shots and of the headline speakers is while they pontificate from on high. They simply don’t mingle with the masses at most of these events.

Yet, the SWE’s own cadre of big names and big credentials—and we’ve got them: MWs and MSs and DWSs and CWEs and industry mavens enough to shake a stick at—attend our annual conference as much to receive as to give, to learn as well as to share. By their very presence they remind us that wine is a gigantic subject, one that no single person or palate can or will ever understand completely. It’s the mystery of wine, of what it is and what it’s been and what it will become that these students of the grape accept and acknowledge by their willingness to slip into the crowd and be one with all of us in our quest to learn and enjoy and appreciate.

So next year as you settle in to your various sessions, take a gander around the room. And realize that winos extraordinaire who have spent the last ten or twenty years pursuing credentials, in serious study, the industry movers and shakers, are just as interested in the topic about to be explored as you are. An MS here, and there another. An MW across the room. Give them a smile or a thumbs-up, say hello between sessions.

Remember, at most venues these are the people who speak and split. At the Society of Wine Educators, they’re here, like the rest of us, to learn and to listen; to meet and network and revel in all that is wine. Not many places where the audience is as keen on the subject as the instructors. And that, I suspect—the quality of our educational offerings as evidenced by the quality of our audience—is a big part of what raises the Society of Wine Educators Annual Conference above the competition.

See you next year.

Jim Laughren, CWE—Chicago, Illinois—8/17/17

About the author: Jim Laughren, CWE is the founder of WineHead Consulting in Chicago. He has been buying, selling, drinking, trading, collecting, sourcing, importing, distributing, studying, consulting, and writing about wine for most of his life. He is the author of ‘A Beer Drinker’s Guide To Knowing & Enjoying Fine Wine,’ a Kirkus ‘Indie Book of the Year’ in 2013, and has a second book, ’50 Ways To Love Wine More,’ scheduled for release this year. He travels frequently to wine regions around the world and greatly enjoys expanding wine’s “customer base” by introducing new drinkers to the pleasures of the fermented juice.

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Photo Credit: Alan Tardi 

Today we have a conference preview from Alan Tardi. Alan is an ambassador of Conegliano Valdobbiadene as well an a James Beard Award-winning author. Read on!

One of the things I love most about being professionally involved with wine (besides drinking it, of course!) is that no matter how much you know, there is always something new to learn and discover. Take Prosecco, for example, the quintessential Italian bubbly: Everybody in the wine-drinking world knows it — some even dink it on a regular basis without giving it a second thought. But most people, even many wine professionals, don’t really know that much about it, partly because they don’t even realize there’s much to know.

While everyone knows Prosecco, many don’t realize that there are actually three of them, much less what the differences are between them are. Prosecco DOC, created in 2009, encompasses a huge production area extending over two regions of northeastern Italy and accounts for more than 80% of all Prosecco produced. Colli Asolani Prosecco DOCG, also created in 2009, is a tiny area in the province of Treviso that was traditionally known for its still wines.

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG consists of 15 small municipalities in the hills about an hour north of Venice. Vines have been cultivated here for hundreds if not thousands of years, and this is where the wine we now know as Prosecco was originally born.

But that’s just the beginning.

Photo Credit: Alan Tardi

The tiny growing area of Conegliano Valdobbiadene has an amazing diversity of terrior and microclimate, which you can actually taste in the wines, especially ones that are made from a single-village or vineyard. Besides the primary grape variety called Glera (formerly known as Prosecco), there are a number of other extremely interesting native varieties, which contribute unique character to the wines they show up in, even in very small quantities. While the vast majority of Prosecco is made sparkling in an autoclave (a technique that was perfected over a century ago for this area’s winemaking at the enology school in Conegliano), did you know that Prosecco can also undergo its second fermentation right in the bottle?

And did you know there’s a rare type of Prosecco that does not have any bubbles at all?

There’s actually a treasure trove of surprising things in Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco just waiting to be explored, and that’s what we’re going to do in a session at this year’s SWE Conference called Way Beyond Bubbles: Terroir, Tradition and Technique in Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG. (S1A)

Following a brief look at the history of Conegliano Valdobbiadene, the geological makeup of the area, and key features of the appellation, we will dive in to a comprehensive comparative tasting of 10 extraordinary wines in five flights of two that will demonstrate numerous unique features of Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco including rare “Tranquillo’ (still wines), native grape varieties, single vineyard and single village designations (‘Rive’), autoclave vs. second fermentation in bottle (both in the classic method with disgorgement, and the traditional method with the yeasts still in the bottle), the influence of terroir on wine, and the impact of  residual sugar and different ways to use it (or not).

Photo Credit: Alan Tardi

Overall, this will be an eye-opening experience for any wine lover and a must for wine educators.

Look forward to seeing you in Portland!

Alan Tardi was named first ever US Ambassador of Conegliano Valdobbiadene in January 2015. His first book, ‘Romancing the Vine: Life, Love and Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo’ (St Martins Press, 2006) won a James Beard Award for Best Wine and Spirits Book of 2006. And a new book, “Champagne, Uncorked: The House of Krug and the Timeless Allure of the World’s Most Celebrated Drink” (Hachette/PublicAffairs 2016) recently won a Gourmand Best in the World Award in the French Wine category.

Alan’s session, Way Beyond Bubbles: Terroir, Tradition and Technique in Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco DOCG will be held on Saturday, August 12, 2017 at 8:45 am as part of the Society of Wine Educator’s 41^st Annual Conference, to be held in Portland, Oregon.