Summary: The 'Beyond the Textbook' series seeks to get under the skin of specific varieties and regions from around the world. Here Justin tastes 3 amazing, but very different style from Viré-Clessé. It's Chardonnay, but not as you know it... Details of all three wines can be found in the attached pdf About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin passed the

Summary: In this video we taste three exquisite examples of Semillon/Sémillon from France and Australia, each with a really nice bit of bottle age. Justin recaps some of the textbook knowledge about this grape variety, as well as the key winemaking and viticultural factors that give the wines their unique personalities. We also cover some blind tasting tips about how you might tell these wines apart from other similarly styled examples from around the

Summary: This video explores some of the key techniques in tasting red wines, that enable you to make an objective analysis of its quality, and also take the first steps towards identifying the variety and where in the world the wine comes from. This one is designed for those of you who don't have a huge amount of wine tasting experience and want to get to grips with the basics. Details of all the wines are in the attached pdf. About the

Summary: This is a nuts-and-bolts introduction to some basic white wine tasting techniques, aimed at those of you who don't have a huge amount of prior tasting experience. Here we'll discuss some tips for how to get the most out of your white wines, and take the first steps into how you might decipher a grape variety and an objective quality assessment of a wine. You can find all the details of the wines in the pdf download above. About the

Summary: In this video we'll taste 3 different Chardonnays of different styles, quality and origins, and see how we might make some arguments for deciding the variety, where in the world they come from and how good they are using evidence from the glass. All the details about the wines can be found in the pdf link above. About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin

Summary: In this video Justin and Chris explore the world of Rosé, sharing tips and techniques around how to taste quality and starting to make arguments for logical regions of origin. We cover colour, winemaking signatures and what makes a great Rosé through a tasting of three very different wines from the south of France.  Full details of all the wines can be found in the pdf document above. About the

Summary: In this video we'll taste 3 different Syrahs of different styles, quality and origins, and see how we might make some arguments for deciding the variety, where in the world they come from and how good they are using evidence from the glass. All the details about the wines can be found in the pdf link above. About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin

Summary: In this video we explore the limitations of the various wine tasting grids, and Justin introduces the cross system as an alternative method. Both systems are perfectly valid, but this might appeal to you if you share the same frustrations and want to give a different method a try! About the Speaker: Justin Martindale is the Wine Scholar Guild Membership Manager and one of our in-house Masters of Wine. Justin passed the notoriously challenging MW

Summary: With more than 100,000 hectares, Bordeaux is the largest wine-growing region in the world, but today it is desperately out of fashion. Bordeaux “bashing”, climate change and a decline in global wine consumption are putting the world's most famous wine region at risk. While a few prestigious Grand Crus retain their appeal, the industry is facing a crisis akin to the phylloxera outbreak. But solutions do exist. In this presentation, we will take an in-depth look at

Summary: Cataluña is one of Spain’s most historically-rich and progressive wine regions. But how well do you know the wines of Cataluña outside of Priorat or Cava? From the majestic Pyrenees mountains to the sun-drenched coastlines of the Mediterranean, the 12 Catalan wine regions serve to highlight the tremendous diversity of the region.   Join Rick Fisher and Ferran Centelles as they introduce Cataluña’s wine regions and highlight what makes these

Introduction  Wine Scholar Guild is pleased to bring you this 5-session course developed in conjunction with Agro-Bordeaux, a public viticulture and enology school under the authority of the French Ministry of Agriculture. The curriculum explores terroir from the ground up, and is designed to give you a thorough understanding of

Introduction  Wine Scholar Guild is pleased to bring you this 5-session course developed in conjunction with Agro-Bordeaux, a public viticulture and enology school under the authority of the French Ministry of Agriculture. The curriculum explores terroir from the ground up, and is designed to give you a thorough understanding of

Wine Scholar Guild (WSG) is delighted to announce that Christopher Martin MW has joined the team as Director of Education. As one of the very most recent individuals to achieve the Master of Wine certification in February 2024, Christopher has a strong background in education, with over 18 years of teaching a range of students from primary schools to graduate-level courses. 

Summary:  What does complexity mean in wine? Many people talk admiringly about complexity as a positive and desirable attribute in wine. However, it is often unclear what exactly they have in mind when using the term. In this talk, I will address various ways of defining complexity, and what experimental evidence has revealed regarding how people – both novices and experts -

After nearly two years of hard work, we are thrilled to present the Wine Scholar Guild’s latest certification course… The Spanish Wine Scholar® (SWS) Program! The program officially launches in October of 2019, but it is already garnering significant attention around the globe.

Where are we headed? This is a question which all of us have probably asked ourselves at some point during 2020, as a global pandemic unfolds chaotically across a planet experiencing runaway climate change. Both challenges have directly affected French wine growers, with trade tariffs imposed by the USA on European winegrowers forming a third stress-inducing headwind.

Summary For decades, Spanish fine wine had been relegated to a handful of producers in Rioja and Ribera del Duero. Today, visionaries have sprung in regions that were hitherto thought of as mere bulk wine areas or just never capable of producing anything worth a detour. Join Álvaro in this webinar in which we will discover some of the most exciting regions in Spain, producing wines to fill any wine geek's

As a member, you are entitled to two free Master of Wine mentoring sessions a year. These are one-on-one sessions with Justin Martindale MW, our Membership & Community Manager to discuss absolutely anything wine-related that you might find helpful. Sessions last up to 30 minutes, and can be booked directly with Justin

Join May Matta-Aliah, the official BNIA Armagnac Educator who has been working with the region since 2009, for an informational webinar about Armagnac. Wednesday Feb 21st @ 12:00 noon EST May will provide some historical background on Armagnac then bring it to the modern day to discuss some

Picture a wine student in an exam, glass in hand, working methodically through the grid: clarity, intensity, aroma, palate, structure. She's been trained to be objective, to leave her biases at the door, to divide the whole into its component parts: acidity, tannin, fruit, oak—and reassemble them into a neat summation. She might even get the ‘right’ answer, but has she actually tasted the wine? This scene plays out in tasting rooms and wine schools around the world, every day. It's the foundation of modern wine education: systematic, analytical, replicable. And for certain purposes—building vocabulary, developing sensory memory, passing standardized exams—it works. It corresponds perfectly to the reductionist paradigm from which it springs. And yet, something essential is missing. Wine becomes an object to be decoded and dominated rather than an experience to be lived and moved by. The taster becomes a technician rather than a participant.