Wine classes, private tastings & corporate events
ENOUGH STUFF | This year, give the gift of wine, food, people & fun with a BWS gift certificate
Gift tickets are applicable to all Boston Wine School classes and are good for seven years from the date of issue, per the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Gift tickets are not refundable nor redeemable for cash.
Great teachers don’t teach you what they know – they figure out what you need to learn, and then they teach you that.
We’ve always followed this philosophy at the Boston Wine School. Classes have always been small in number and intimate in style, and now you can have that same personal experience in a one-on-one Zoom setting. You have my undivided attention during a wine class designed by me especially for you.
Here’s how it works:
WHEN YOU REGISTER | Say something about what you want to learn and why, and suggest a few dates & times for your private wine class.
STEP ONE | You talk, I listen. We have a conversation about you, your wine and food tastes, what you want to learn, how you like to learn, and more.
STEP TWO | I create a list of wines and foods specially selected for your class. Then you go shopping!
STEP THREE | I develop your personal curriculum around what you want to learn, we set a date & time, then in your class , the fun and learning begin!
It’s pretty much that simple. We connect via Zoom live from my wine cellar, the place where I taught the very first Boston Wine School classes.
Any questions or ideas, please contact me and let me know. See you in class!
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — It’s hard to speak the language of wine because it’s a language invented by drunk people, but wine lovers blame themselves for the convoluted vocabulary. Talking about wine is like writing a poem where multiple literal and metaphorical images appear and overlap. But it would help if we could get clear on a few basic words.
Someone threw the word “lean” into the mix the other night in class to describe the body of an Italian Pinot Grigio we were tasting. The opposite of “lean” is “fat” or “big and round” – think archetypical California Chardonnay. The PG in question was light in weight and silver in color, edgy, zippy, a little watery, but in a good way.
We use a lot of body image descriptors to talk about wine – a big red can be legitimately called a “body builder” – and they are a natural way to think and talk about wine.
HOMEWORK: Use it in a sentence. For instance: “I want a glass of white wine, something lean and light.”
Something lean and light? Here you go!
One of the challenges with Italian Pinot Grigio is that it’s extremely different depending on where it’s grown in Italy. Sometimes, grown hot and wild in the south, Pinot Grigio comes off thin and watery, but not this one. Friuli is the foothills of the Alps – next stop, Austria and Slovenia – and the growing season is long and cool. What slow cooking does for food, slow growing does for wine. The result is a suave, rich Pinot Grigio to pair with seafood of all kinds, wild mushroom risotto, even fragrant veal and pork dishes.
2016 Paolo Valle Pinot Grigio
100% Pinot Grigio
(Friuli, northeast Italy, $18.99)
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — Inventive holidays like International Malbec Day give us the chance to look deep into the many Malbec based wines we teach with in wine class. Alma Andina – Soul of the Andes – hits the Boston Wine School trifecta: we use it in “Come To Cheeses” with Manchego, “Grape Expectations” and “Wine 101,” classes that represent the core of our curriculum.
As you can imagine, the world is full of tasty Malbec under $20, but the style of this Alma Andina is special. There’s plenty of dark brooding fruit flavors in the glass, tastes that will remind you of dates and figs and dried cherries.
But if you step out a little into the lake, the bottom drops off suddenly, and deep earthy subterranean flavors take over. I know I completely mixed my metaphors there, but this wine is worth it. If I’d tasted it blind, I’d have guessed French Malbec, a category that starts at $25 a bottle.
Argentina is a land in love with its carnivorous ways. It’s not unusual to have chicken, pork, beef, lamb and goat all in the course of the same meal, and you can tell this week’s wine was brought up in that same tradition. Don’t feel left out, vegans and vegetarians: the match here is with the grill and the char, something you can achieve completely, even meat free. I can definitely see myself working through a case of this Malbec once we start grilling again.
2016 Alma Andina Malbec Reserve (Mendoza, Argentina)
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — California makes more Pinot Noir than it grows, not by importing out-of-state wine, but by blending in other grapes. Technically, US wine only has to be 75% one grape type to be named for that grape on the label. In theory, your favorite bottle could be pure Pinot, or it could be three-quarters, or anything in between.
Truth is, you can often easily see this in the glass. Pinot Noir – the grape – is light red and thin skinned, and many classic Euro Pinot Noir is so light you can read your phone through a glass of it. When you crack open a California Pinot and it comes out dark red, almost opaque, that’s a sure sign the wine’s blended, often with a high-pigment grape like Petite Sirah.
This week’s special comes from our “Pinot To The People” class, and we use the DeLoach “Private Collection” for a lot of reasons – its bright cherry and cranberry fruit flavors, its slight earthiness and outdoorsy aromas – but mostly for its authenticity. The color is real life burgundy and the flavor is true-to-type Pinot Noir.
If you’re a fan of cool-climate Oregon Pinot, this is a great choice. It comes from the Sonoma Coast, way north and west of Sonoma Valley and much closer to the cold Pacific. The result is a slow-grown wine full of flavor and finesse.
2013 DeLoach “Private Collection” Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast, California, USA)
https://www.vinovations.us/deloach-private-collection-sonoma-county-pinot-noir-2013/
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — Our “Signature Grapes” tasting class really gets fundamental by tasting the connection between certain wines and the places around the world they’ve made famous – and vice versa. Zinfandel fills this role in California wine. Cabernet and Chardonnay may be just as famous, but you only get this kind of Zinfandel one place, and that’s a unique geographic bond that you can taste in the bottle.
People ask me all the time what’s my favorite wine, and I’ve got a lot of favorites, but the truth is, it’s Zinfandel. I love California’s signature grape because it has a little bit of everything I love in a wine – fruit, spice, earthiness, black AND white pepper.
In the wine world, we call this balance, and if you balance flavors in some dynamic and tasty way, we call this style. On the spectrum of Zinfandel, this Raymond stakes out the fruit and juice range, and its style is alive, vivid, and California sunny. The color is dark candy-apple red, and the flavors will remind you first of ripe red plums and black raspberries, then almost behind the scenes, the wine smells like dried herbs, even a little like cocoa.
Best of all, this 2014 is young by Zinfandel standards. It possesses great youth and vitality right now, but I would be looking forward to drinking this in the 2020s too.
2014 Raymond Vineyards “The Inaugural R Collection” Zinfandel
(St. Helena, Napa, California, USA)
https://www.vinovations.us/the-inaugural-r-collection-by-raymond-vineyards-zinfandel-2012/
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — This is one of those wines that really sets your expectations before you even get into the bottle.
First of all, the richly artistic label – evocative and powerful on its own – promises a powerful wine experience. And then the blend – Cabernet Sauvignon plus Zinfandel – is simultaneously new yet embarrassingly obvious too. As soon as I saw it, I had one of those “DUH!” moments. America loves Cabernet… America loves Zinfandel – what took us so long?
There are other blends out there that use Cab and Zin with other grapes, but so far this is the only pure Cabernet + Zinfandel blend I’ve ever encountered, and I plan to encounter it again and again! This is a $17 blend that tastes better than any $17 Cabernet or $17 Zinfandel on its own.
The Ocean Howler really represents the best of both worlds: the bright, juicy, fruity happiness of Zinfandel combined with Cabernet’s earthiness and weight. It’s not quite April yet, but I’m already thinking about barbecue season, and this blend would be delicious with anything smoky and meaty off the grill. At just $2.20 a glass, this is one of the tastiest under-the-radar wines I’ve come across in a long time.
2016 The Ocean Howler Cabernet Sauvignon + Zinfandel
(Lodi, central California, USA)
https://www.vinovations.us/the-ocean-howler-cabernet-sauvignon-zinfandel-2016/
By Jonathon Alsop
BOSTON, MA — This Wine Club Selection comes right out of our Burgers And Bordeaux class.
Our curriculum always focuses on the delicious, and this Merlot-heavy blend really teaches us what Merlot means in Bordeaux. As always, every Wine School Selection is a wine we teach with and you taste in class. That’s how you know it’s good.
This silky red Bordeaux represents a great value for a few simple reasons.
First, it’s from a great vintage, maybe better than 2015 even. Next, it’s from a very un-famous place – Castillon, literally on the other side of the river – which moderates the price. And finally, it’s majorly Merlot, a grape in abundance in Castillon.
The result is a soft, friendly, very easy to drink red classic with an abundance of fruit flavors – raspberry, cranberry, red cherry, and more. Best of all is the texture of this wine. It’s so lush and delightful and full of soft soft tannins, which are so rare – so many big reds are gritty instead.
Château de Colombe is drinking just fine right this very minute, but for a vintage like 2016 is shaping up to be, I would be confident to age it for 7 – 10 years. If 2016 is a special year in your life or someone you know, this is a profoundly affordable way to commemorate that year.
2016 Château de Colombe (Castillon, Côtes de Bordeaux, western France)
http://www.vinovations.us/chateau-de-colombe-castillon-cotes-de-bordeaux-2016
WINE+FOOD | Ten Dollar Cheese, Million Dollar Match
Fourme d’Ambert
Cow’s milk blue | Southern France | About $15 a pound, available widely at cheese shops and Whole Foods
Fourme is the oldest continuously made cheese in France, introduced by the ancient Romans 2,000 years ago. It looks startlingly blue – and it is – but the flavor is surprisingly mild and mostly buttery. Fourme’s rich creamy texture is a good match with the feel of this week’s wine. We use this in wine and cheese class as a “gateway” blue, a great blue cheese for people who don’t like blue cheese… yet.