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el centro wine class

Register for WC’s 2018 El Centro beverage management class

El Centro Thursday afternoon and the WC’s El Centro beverage management class: a perfect pairing

The Wine Curmudgeon’s El Centro College class will return in January – RSTO 1301, beverage management, for those who want to an adventure in wine, beer, and spirits. If you aren’t a student at El Centro, but live in the Dallas area, you can take it as continuing education through this link for about $100.

This semester, we’re doing about a dozen tastings among the 15 classes. That includes the world’s great wine regions, all you ever wanted to know about whiskey (or whisky), and craft beer. Depending on my samples, I usually find a very pricey red wine for those tastings. Note, too, the change in time — 4-5:50 p.m. on Thursdays.

In addition, we’ll discuss the three-tier system and the wine supply chain, and I’ll bring in a Dallas restaurateur to talk about everyone’s favorite subject, restaurant wine prices. That’s just one of the many guest speakers, featuring some of the smartest wine, beer, and spirits people in Dallas. There may also be a rant or two about the alcohol business and its foolishness – delivered with the proper academic perspective, of course.

All is delivered with my unique brand of enthusiasm, map drawing skills (my Texas map is legendary), humor, and passion for wine. And did I mention a dozen tastings?

More on the El Centro wine class:
• El Centro wine class 2017
• Return to El Centro Wine Class 2017
• Beverage management at El Centro

Return to El Centro wine class 2017

El Centro wine classThis semester’s El Centro wine class is just as baffled by three-tier as everyone else

One of the joys of teaching is that every class is different, and that each approaches the subject from a different direction. This semester’s El Centro wine class is more inquisitive than past classes and takes more notes.

But this El Centro wine class has one thing in common with the others, as well as with every wine class I’ve taught over the past 20 years: The shock and disbelief when I explain the three-tier system. Or, as one student said during the discussion: “So that’s why I got a $39 ticket for bringing beer into Oklahoma.”

The look on their faces as I diagram how three-tier works – that manufacturers can only sell to distributors, who can only sell to retailers and restaurants, and that consumers can only buy from retailers and restaurants with very limited exceptions – makes me smile every time I see it. It’s as baffling to a generation raised on the Internet as space travel was to my grandfather, who grew up in the coal country around Donora, Pa., at the beginning of the 20th century. If my students can buy anything else in the world on Amazon, why not wine?

In addition, we’ve also done a little tasting, and they grasped the concepts involved quickly. That is, that they need to approach wine the same way that they approach food, to deconstruct its flavors as they would for any dish they taste. What I don’t want to hear, I tell them, is that this wine “tastes like wine.” That’s like saying food they don’t understand tastes like chicken, and we know they’re not supposed to do that.

Register for WC’s 2017 El Centro wine class

El Centro wine class Thursday night and the WC’s El Centro wine class: a perfect pairing

There is still time to register for the Wine Curmudgeon’s — dare I say it? — epic return to El Centro College in Dallas to teach the original wine class – RSTO 1319, viticulture and enology, for those who want to register. If you aren’t a student at El Centro, you can take it as continuing education through this link for about $100.

This semester, we’re doing 10 tastings among the 15 classes, and will cover most of the world’s great wine regions, including France, two classes on California, and U.S. regional wine. Depending on my samples, I usually find a very pricey Napa red wine for the Napa and Sonoma tasting.

In addition, we’ll discuss the three-tier system and the wine supply chain, and I’ll bring in a Dallas restaurateur to talk about everyone’s favorite subject, restaurant wine prices. That’s just one of the many guest speakers, featuring some of the smartest wine people in Dallas. There may also be a rant or two about wine scores – delivered with the proper academic perspective, of course.

All is delivered with my unique brand of enthusiasm, map drawing skills (my Texas map is legendary), humor, and passion for wine. And did I mention 10 tastings?

More on the El Centro wine class:
• El Centro wine class: A new semester
• The Wine Curmudgeon’s fall 2015 wine education extravaganza
• Beverage management at El Centro

The WC’s El Centro wine class is back

El Centro wine classIf you’ve got a couple of hours on Thursday night, consider the El Centro wine class

The Wine Curmudgeon will return to El Centro College in Dallas next semester, teaching the original wine class – RSTO 1319, viticulture and enology, for those who want to register. If you aren’t a student at El Centro, you can take it as continuing education through this link.

That means 16 classes covering the wines of the world, the three-tier system and the wine supply chain (which is a lot more fun than it sounds), wine production and grape growing, which includes my infamous vineyard and sunlight blackboard sketches, and more than a dozen tastings. I also bring in a variety of guest speakers, featuring some of the smartest wine people in Dallas. There may also be a rant or two about wine scores – delivered with the proper academic perspective, of course.

All is delivered with my unique brand of enthusiasm, map drawing skills, humor, and passion for wine. How much more fun can one have on a couple of hours on a Thursday night?

I missed teaching this semester, and I’m excited to be doing it again, The semester begins Jan. 19 and ends May 11. It always amazes me, no matter how many times I’ve done it, to see people nod their head in agreement when something makes sense, and to know I’ve struck a blow against the foolishness of the wine business.

More on the El Centro wine class:
• El Centro wine class: A new semester
• The Wine Curmudgeon’s fall 2015 wine education extravaganza
• Beverage management at El Centro

el centro wine class

Beverage management at El Centro

elcentroMy third class at Dallas’ El Centro College ended last week, the first in the Beverage management format. Which means there are now 15 culinary students armed with the knowledge that restaurant wine prices are too high, the three-tier system is not our friend, and that vodka is more adaptable to cocktails than Scotch.

Beverage management replaced the wine/beer and spirits format I started with, as part of the plan to upgrade the Food & Hospitality Institute curriculum (part of which, rumor has it, involves giving adjunct instructors like the Wine Curmudgeon a desk). Beverage management focuses more on the theory and skills the students will need when they work in the industry; hence, a terrific presentation from Eddie Eakin of Dallas’ Boulevardier and Rapscallion restaurants on bar management and especially on how to cost cocktails. Who knew how expensive a dash of bitters was?

Having said that, there is still a consumer side to the class, and we will do 11 class tastings in the fall, from sparkling wine to craft beer to single malt Scotch to cocktails. The goal, over the long term, is to offer beverage management as well as separate wine and beer and spirits classes. Until then, taking beverage management as a continuing education student is one of the best values in the wine world – $177, which includes not only the tastings and some smart and fun guest speakers but my lectures, which are more or less like getting the blog in person once a week.

Finally, a word about this semester’s class. I have taught some version of this class for almost three years, first at the soon to be late Cordon Bleu in Dallas and now at El Centro, and every day I do it I understand why so many teachers enjoy teaching so much. The students paid attention, wanted to learn, and hardly ever used Snapchat in class (because, as cranky as I am, I notice these things). We had intelligent discussions about pairing food not just with wine but with beer and spirits, whether terroir existed in beer (very controversial), and the value of three-tier system. Some of them even disagreed with me on that one, which made me smile that much more.