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Event Details

Wine OR Wine & Food

Wine Professionals, Students and Aficionados

Dear friends:

New Spain Wines Es. is pleased to announce an opportunity to present our Certified D.O. Jerez Sherry Seminar in San Francisco at the famed Gitane Restaurant, August 3rd and 4th this summer.

Local wine consultant Dan Fischer, and Sean Diggins from Gitane have offered to work with us in bringing this course to the wine professionals of the west coast.

The seminar will be presented by Javier Arauz, the former Director of The Wine Academy of Spain, and Wendy Vallaster, certified ISG Sommelier, the managing partners of New Spain Wines. Both are official Sherry Educators, certified by the Consejo Regulador of D.O. Jerez, Xérès, Sherry, and Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and Educators of The Spanish Wine Educators course which the two of them have presented in about a dozen cities around the US and western Canada in ’08! Javier is a WSET Recommended Tutor and has been instructing over the past 5 years.

Aside from teaching, we now spend the majority of our time traipsing around the Spanish countryside seeking out new and innovative Spanish wine projects and feeding our own thirst for knowledge which as you know, in the wine world, never seems to be quenched. This gives us a unique opportunity to pass it along to you, via our courses.

The Certified D.O. Jerez Sherry Seminar takes place over the course of 1.5 days. It is a serious course, which requires a serious commitment to pass…

We will cover all of the Sherry styles, with methods of production, soil diversity, climate, grape varieties, history, D.O. regulations, etc. The idea here is for you to leave us, feeling that you thoroughly understand the different styles of Sherry, and most importantly, what methods and conditions are implemented to end up with each particular style.

There will be an intensive tasting component to the seminar, and we will taste a wide selection of them, including each of the various Sherry styles. If we are lucky, we may have some special and unique treats for you to taste too… if we can get our hands on an extremely rare, vintage Sherry!

The seminar concludes with an exam, consisting of two segments, blind tasting and theoretical.

To register, or ask questions please contact Wendy Vallaster at wvallaster@newspainwines.com, or Javier Arauz at jarauz@newspainwines.com.

Course fee… $195 US, with a 10% discount to SWE members, ISG alumni, and WSET alumni. Send us an e-mail with your student/member number/username and we'll give you a code for your discount.

Schedule listed below contact info...

Sincerely,

Wendy Vallaster and Javier Arauz,

New Spain Wines Es.

Malaga, Spain

wc +34 677 688 355

jc +34 606 328 272

Phone & Fax: +34 952 935 395

E-Mail: wvallaster@newspainwines.com

or

jarauz@newspainwines.com

Length of course............... 1.5 days, including exams.

Day 1 - 9am to 5pm

Day 2 - 9am to 1pm

Course outline:

Day 1

9.00 – 9.30 Introduction / Historical Background

9.30 – 10.00 The “Consejo Regulador”

10.00 – 10.30 Break

10.30 – 11.15 Sherry Viticulture

11.15 – 12.00 Sherry Winemaking / “Flor”

12.00 – 12.45 Tasting of Dry Sherries

12.45 – 1.45 Lunch break

1.45 – 2.15 Production of Sweet Sherries

2.15 – 3.00 Tasting of Sweet Sherries

3.00 – 3.30 The “Crianza” / Age-dated Sherries

3.30 – 4.15 Tasting of VOS / VORS

4.15 – 4.45 Enjoying Sherry / pairings

4.45 – 5.00 Questions

Day 2

9.00 – 10:00 Questions / review

10.00 – 10.45 Free time

10.45 – 11.15 Practical Exam (blind tasting of 5 Sherries)

11.15 – 11.45 Theoretical Exam (25 multiple-choice questions)

11.45 – 12.00 Closing

Start times may vary minimally.