The truth is that you really can't taste a wine until it slides right down your throat. None of the paying students spit, and every week we carefully collect the empty cups after class, and then distribute them again the following week. Despite his jovial, slightly intoxicated style of teaching, Kevin's class is extremely regimented. Pourers, neatly cloaked in yet unstained white lab coats, take their stations, each in front of an entrance to a row of tables, blocking people from entering out of turn. Kevin likes for everyone to be seated as they enter, filling each row before moving to the next.
Notable absentees are South Africa, Australia, and Chile, all making long strides in wine making.
These, he says, we will have to buy and taste for ourselves, evaluating them with the skills we've learned in his class. In Zraly's class, you not only learn which vintners make which style wines and which grape varietals are used in which regions, but how to taste and enjoy wine. He wants everyone in his class to appreciate good wine and to understand what makes it good. It is the most democratic approach to wine that I have ever heard. And, it is the right approach to use with a room full of impressionistic wine neophytes susceptible to blossoming into full fledged wine snobs.