A little learning: beginners’ wine course returns to Curious

By now, the more ambitious New Year! New You! projects may be losing their charm, in which case there’ll be room in your diary for a gentle blend of education and socialising as Jack Barrett’s informal and extremely useful wine appreciation course returns to Curious Wines at 7.30pm on Tuesday 1st March.

The course runs for six consecutive Tuesdays here at the Curious warehouse and costs €195 for all classes and materials. Though the evenings are relaxed – there’s no exam! – Jack aims, while you sample a selection of bottles chosen to suit the theme of the week, to cover as many aspects of the study and enjoyment of wine as possible:

• what the label tells you, and what to look out for in restaurants and shops when you don’t know the wines;
• how to taste wine, including what to look, smell and taste for (including faults) and how to compare one wine with another; and
• the principal wine regions, and the many factors that decide the character of each wine, from soil and weather to what happens in the cellar.

There’ll be ample opportunity to ask questions and compare notes, and over the course of six weeks you can look forward to a little history, geography, law, science and politics. You’ll probably pick up a few words of three or four languages, and since the only way to our first floor is up the sixteen steps, you’ll get a workout too.

Really, it’s all those self-improvement classes rolled into one.  First come, first served.

Reservations by telephone only on 021 432 0233.
Beginners’ course (Tuesday 01/03/2011 for six weeks) costs €195.