With all the tastings, festivals, and prepping for exams, it feels like Spring has sprung up around me. In the garden, seeds I rushed to plant before heading to Calgary are already up and growing!

Vancouver Wine Fest happened at the end of February, one of the biggest wine festivals in North America, and it was just incredibly fun. The Australians held court, their wines featured, with wineries visiting from around the world. I was so impressed, in particular with the Aussie white wines. In a move away from cheaper Shiraz and the larger appellation ‘SE Australia’, they are focusing on terroir, and labelling from more specific sites – Hunter Valley, Clare Valley, Mornington, and even Tasmania (try the Jansz Tasmanian sparkle for something fun).

March was awesome – I was lucky enough to get a Champagne & sparkling tutorial from a professional Champagne judge. We tasted through a set of Cava, Prosecco, and Champagne to get her tips on preparing for the WSET Diploma Sparkling exam, under exam conditions – 8 minutes per wine (sounds a lot, but goes faster than you’d think!). Her best hint on how to tell if the wine is Champagne while tasting blind? The finish lingers in the very back of your throat, almost like a fine perfume.

Then the Brunello Consortium was in Vancouver, tasting their newly released 2010 vintage, and the talk of the town was how good a year it was. Lead by local wine writer Anthony Gismondi, we were thrilled to hear from 10 visiting winemakers from Montalcino. I was in Montalcino in 2013, and what a gorgeous place it is. A hillside town overlooking rolling hills of vineyards, stone walkways, and lots of charming cafes and wine bars. Plus, amid all the history it was strangely high-tech, almost every wine store had several fancy Enomatic wine dispensers. One had at least 50 different Brunellos and Rossos on offer. Load up a little card with credit, and you can peruse the wines selecting up to an ounce to be dispensed. I will be posting on my favourite 2010 Brunellos shortly.

All was not milk and honey though, there were two big WSET exams to contend with: Fortified and Sparkling. As I painstakingly recreated a 6 foot map of the world on the living room wall and filled in all the specs, I began to wonder whether it was a good idea doing both exams on the same day! Did I leave enough time to review?? Off to Calgary I went, and at 9 am on Tuesday, we wrote the Sparkling exam. A blind tasting included a Cava, an Asti, and a NZ traditional method sparkling which was very delicious. The fortifieds followed at 11 am. We had a Cream Sherry, a Maury, and a VSOP Cream. Very tricky, as the VSOP had the acid and length of a fine Madeira!

All I can do now is wait patiently for the 8 weeks until marks are ready, and hope that I was successful. Advice for WSET Diploma students: know your producers (Symington!), don’t procrastinate, and do more reading than required (the Christie’s Champagne Encyclopedia & Jancis’ Purple Pages were invaluable).

Cheers, Rachel