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‘Wine Online’ educates budding oenophiles
The new course is well-timed, with interest in wine on the rise following the release of the award-winning movie Sideways. With funding provided by the E. & J. Gallo Winery of California, the course is designed to enhance understanding of wine tasting, worldwide wine production and the selection of wines to fit various menus and foods, according to Fred J. DeMicco, ARAMARK Chair in Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management at UD. “UD Wine Online is an innovative educational product and a substantive supplement for our hotel, restaurant and institutional management students to teach them about pairing wine with the food and cuisine, and selling and serving wine to maximize revenue,” DeMicco said. He added that the course dovetails with the Copeland Vinotek and the Darden Bistro, both located within UD’s Vita Nova restaurant in the Trabant University Center. In addition to informing UD students, DeMicco said the course “will also be beneficial to servers in restaurants and will prove an effective and affordable online and computer-based training tool for the restaurant and food service industry.” DeMicco said the project is the result of strong work by a team that includes Susannah Eaton-Ryan, a UD alumnus and former senior vice president of The Food Network, Robert R. Nelson, UD associate professor of hotel, restaurant and institutional management, UD Media Services, the E. & J. Gallo Winery and Old. Old said she signed on with the project after a discussion with Nelson when she was serving as one of the primary instructors for Andrea Immer’s wine courses at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. “My experiences with UD's HRIM department have been very positive,” Old said. “The leadership was very forward thinking to take on this unusual project, the staff and faculty were true professionals on every level and the students I met were engaged and inquisitive.” Old said the decision to participate in an online course was driven by the fact that “wine education is hard to come by in the United States” and that “Internet-based courses are the way of the future.” “There is little formal training available in wine and what is available is only found in a few major metro markets,” Old said. “Ever since my days as education chair for the fledgling American Sommelier Association, I have wanted to make basic wine training more accessible. The University of Delaware's infrastructure for delivering long-distance learning online seemed ideal for reaching out to both the hospitality trade and interested consumers.” Old added that online courses “are cost-effective” and that “busy students can fit hours of instruction into their schedules at their convenience. I love to teach about wine, and thousands of people are eager to learn. By packaging my course as an online program, we can reach a far wider audience.” The course, Old said, “is unusual among wine classes in that I tend to focus on the big picture, the why's and how's that help us understand the variations we find between wine styles.” She said she emphasizes three key points: the distinction between subjective and objective approaches to describing wine, and how to trust your own judgment of a wine's primary characteristics; the influence of climate on the fruit-ripening process, a tremendously useful way of thinking about wine flavor and style; and the simple sensory science behind the dramatic changes that take place when wine and food are consumed together, and a few simple tricks for combining them in a flattering way. Old said she came by her interest in wine while a college student in the early 1990s, when she took a job as a waitress to pay the bills. “I really enjoyed hospitality and gravitated to fine dining restaurants,” she said. “Many of my existing skills were useful there, like my fluency in French and my performance background. Of course, I needed to learn about wine in that environment and was immediately hooked. Wine combined many of my existing interests, like geology and history. My wine career began first as a hobby--it was something fascinating to read about and taste in my spare time--but it didn't stay a hobby for long.” Despite her youth, Old was among the most knowledgeable people on the subject of wine on the staff at Chanterelles, one of Philadelphia's top chef-owned restaurants. “I took over the wine list responsibilities for this Four Diamond-ranked restaurant at the tender age of 24,” she said, adding, “I quickly found that this was my niche, and the rest is history.” Within six years, Old was the top fine wine buyer in Pennsylvania, the founding education chair of the American Sommelier Association and Philadelphia's highest profile sommelier. She now has her own company, specializing in wine education, corporate events and restaurant consultation. Wine has a very special appeal, Old said, one that goes “far beyond that of a simple source of alcohol.” She said that “despite our puritan American heritage, there is clearly growing evidence that low-alcohol fermented beverages like wine and beer can be a healthy part of a moderate lifestyle. We now know that wine is both nutritious and good for you. Wine is essentially food, a sauce on the side, so to speak. But, wine is much more than just another dietary supplement, like vitamins or fiber.” Old said “pleasure is part of the answer” to wine’s appeal. “Fruit tastes good and fruit juice tastes good, so it's not a real surprise that fermented fruit juice tastes good, too,” she said. “In fact, it's delicious, and it keeps longer. Wine also makes us feel good, more relaxed and open to enjoying life in the moment. When we're talking about the vast majority of wines, we can usually stop there. Simple wines are wines to sip and enjoy, wines to talk over, not to talk about.” However, Old said, there is no question that there is something more, something special about wine, and particularly the fine wines. “Wine has, over the centuries, inspired poets and influenced kings, and it holds the ultimate place of honor in Christianity,” she said. “While I'm certain that its mind-altering effects are partly responsible for its continuing appeal, wine's remarkable longevity and healing properties play a strong role, too. But, it is wine's ability to capture both the pristine flavor of fresh fruit and the actual 'taste of the place' where that fruit was grown that makes wine such a wonder.” Fine wine is the world's most "site specific" product, Old said, where every minute detail, from soil to weather, influences the flavor in a noticeable way. “An appreciation for fine wine is, in a sense, a form of vicarious travel,” she said, “a way to experience places we've never been. In a world that seems to shrink every year through global communication, where mass-produced foods and products are ubiquitous, wine remains a lonely reminder of how large, diverse and remarkable our planet really is. The growing of great grapes and the making of fine wine are acts of love for both man and the land.” To learn more about the course and for a demonstration by Old, visit [www.continuingstudies.udel.edu/udonline/wine/description.html]. Article by Neil Thomas To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
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