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Less of a Wine Novice, Thanks to FDU’s Wine Online Course

  • Michelle
  • April 13, 2012

There I was, standing in front of a wine display at a liquor store, wondering which of the white wines available would taste as good as that last glass of wine I had at dinner the other day. I was too intimidated to ask anyone. I didn’t want them to find out I’m a wine novice. I ended up walking out of that store with tequila instead.

That was in 2011. Call me a late bloomer when it comes to enjoying wine, but I know many people can relate to my experience. The vast amount of varieties of wine available to us can leave us perplexed with what to choose. And this is exactly why it was only recently that I learned how to bask in the satisfaction of genuinely enjoying a glass of wine. My knowledge stemmed to “there’s red and there’s white wine”. I usually ordered whites at restaurants, since I felt that it was my safest choice. Sad, I know. Needless to say, I badly needed to be educated.

When I was given a chance to take the online wine course launched by Fairleigh Dickinson University‘s International School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, in cooperation with the New York Times, I knew I had to take it.

The online wine course is composed of 26 classes, with very insightful videos of wine tasting for different varietals. What I love about the course, is that you learn about wine by the grape varieties, not by geographic area. I believe it’s most important to know what wine grapes I would actually enjoy if I really want to narrow down my wine preferences.

The Wine Online course at FDU starts at the beginning: how wines are produced, history and statistics presented in a concise manner. Then, it moves on to how to properly taste the wine so you can savor its full potential. Following this are chapters that talk about wine grapes, starting with Chardonnay for white wines, and finishing with Shiraz for red.

In the middle part of the course, you learn about the most popular and complex wine regions around the world, dessert or sweet wines, sake and fortified wine.

Less of a Wine Novice, Thanks to FDU’s Wine Online CourseSince it’s an online course, it all rests upon you to go out and buy wines, so you can actually experience what they’re talking about in the tasting videos and throughout the course. This, I believe, will be the hard part for most of us beginners. The course should suggest which bottles to pick up. But, if you’re using this online wine course to, say, train your wait staff at a restaurant, you will find that it is informative and can be effective.

I still prefer taking an actual wine course, but for now, suffice it to say I’m more knowledgeable about wines. Even though I have a lot more to learn, it feels good knowing what to expect from the glass or bottle of wine I’m buying. In fact, I’ve recently braved the wine store knowing what I wanted.

The course is available for $149, and you can send an inquiry for discounts.

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