The Wine Experience will be offering Educational Wine Tours in Italy.
This is the Perfect Opportunity to do a Wine Course/Wine Tour. The very best way to understand how wine is made is to go visit a winery and talk to the winemaker. Walk in the vineyards, look at how the pruning is done, what kind of soil it is. Or go down into the wine cellar and smell the fermentation. Taste from different oak barrels to see the difference oak makes. Take samples into the tasting room and start mixing your very own cuvee. There are educational tours, courses, and wine training on all levels, for non-professionals as well as trade.
Beginners Wine Course Tour
Introduction to Wine, Vine Growing & Winemaking
A Beginner’s Wine Course Tour would typically focus on three things: Viticulture, Vinification and Tasting. You pick a wine region that interests you and during a few days in this region we will combine visits to vineyards with educational, comparative wine tastings. To get a good idea of how a wine producer works during the year each visit we make will highlight a specific activity. In the vineyard there will be a talk about the soil, the climate, the terroir and how to obtain the appropriate yield (with pruning, green harvest, effeuillage, etc). Discussion on fertilizers, spraying and treatments of the vineyard and other ways to care for the vines. In the cellar you will learn about the fermentation, the advantages and disadvantages of natural yeast. Also, an explanation on the methods of pigeage and remontage (and also delestage). There will be a talk about why some wine producers prefer stainless steel tanks and others concrete vats. There will be a discussion on the oak effect: why some wines need to spend time in oak barrels and what the oak does to the wine. There will be 2 daily visits to wine producers. Every day will be finished with a wine tasting which focuses on learning how to describe a wine and how to determine quality.
Advanced Wine Enthusiast Tour
Technical Tasting of Aged Champagne
In-Depth View of Viticulture & Vinification
Do you want to get a deep and thorough understand of wine, vine growing and wine making… For the more advanced wine enthusiasts we can offer an in-depth course which will take you deep into the details of of viticulture and vinification – how vines are grown and how wine is made in the cellar. You will be looking at different ways of pruning and what its importance if for the growth of the vine, as well as talking about canopy management. You will be visiting “conventional”, organic and biodynamic producers to show what requirements they need to fulfill. There may be a discussion on fertilizers, spraying and treatments of the vineyard, crop thinning and yield limitation methods etc.
Oak barrels in the Wine Cellar and a Tasting Pipette
In the cellar there may be a tasting from different oak barrels, with wood from different origins (although there is a trend today to focus on grain and density rather than on origin), from different coopers and with different toasting. It will show you the importance of choosing the right barrels for your wines and look at the effect of oak chips as an alternative to barrels. And perhaps acacia and cherry wood.
A talk about additives and what they are used for: yeasts, tannins, sulphur (can you do wine without sulfur… – a trendy debate today), enzymes, chaptalisation, acidification, de-acidification etc. Temperature control is another important aspect in the wine cellar, by many considered as the most important innovation and most important factor in modern winemaking.
Making a Wine Cuvee in the Tasting Room
You will also be able to try for yourself the difficult art of blending a wine – making a cuvee. For instance, blending a well balanced Bordeaux from the four (or three, or five…) different grape varieties that a Bordeaux winemaker has at his disposal.
Restaurateurs & Sommeliers Wine Tour
Winemaking, Wine Culture & Gastronomy
For those working in a Restaurant, perhaps as Sommelier, a part of the course/wine tour will focus on how to combine wine and food. We will talk about regional gastronomic specialities and how you combine these with local and other wines. There will be a visit to food markets and restaurants to discuss the latest food trends with the young chefs, including a visit to a number of wine growers to get an update on the latest trends in Viticulture and Oenology, but also producers of local specialities. It could be for example olive oil, foie gras, oysters, cheese and truffle, depending on the region. Perhaps even a visit to the annual truffles market that is organised in villages both in France and in Italy.