Every Thursday evening, students march into a West-Edens Link commons room, each bearing a pair of wine glasses. A couple of minutes past eight, most of them have arrived, seated comfortably in a circle. A supply of water and crackers sits atop a few tables in the center of the room, soon to be joined by 14 bottles of wine.
Welcome to Duke's undergraduate version of a wine tasting course.
"It's not a 'real' course, it's not a house course--it's more of a club. The reason we call it a class is there's a component to it where we talk about how you start with a glass of wine, what temperature to serve it, what it's made of and so on," explained course instructor Michael Gustafson, a lecturing fellow in civil engineering.
The course began last year when two students--then-seniors Herbert Cooper and Pete Fishman--approached Gustafson about forming such a class. Even then, however, the idea was not a novel one.
"I've heard other people say that they've heard about a [wine-tasting] class here before," Gustafson said. "I know wine tasting is available in the Triangle area, but I didn't know anything about an undergraduate version."
When the course began in spring 2002, the founders decided the first week would be very general--students would taste a variety of wines, different enough from each other so that it would be impossible to confuse them. The next week would focus on different types of grapes and the following week on foods that complement wine nicely, such as chocolate cake.
The rest of the course takes students on a wine-tasting journey through different global regions, specifically France and Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal; South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and the Americas.
Last week, the region was Spain and Portugal: the first five wines were from Spain and the last two were 'Port' wines.
The class began with a bottle of champagne, Brut Reserva Heredad, from southern Spain. With his hand over the cork, Gustafson first demonstrated how to slightly twist the bottle in order to release the cork without spilling too much bubbly.
"If you're in a celebratory mood, and you want to let the champagne gush out all over the place, that's fine," Gustafson said. "But if you want to actually drink it, this is probably the best way to open a bottle of champagne."
The champagne was passed around the circle of students, each filling about half of their glasses with the golden-colored liquid. Everybody held their glasses to the light, scrutinizing the wine's color to judge how it looks on a scale of one to four. "Look at the size of the bubbles," Gustafson instructed. "The smaller, the better."
The next criterion of inspection was the aroma, to which students can attribute up to six points. Since the wine was carbonated, this was a bit more difficult to perform than usual.
Finally, students raised the glasses to their lips and sipped, slowly swirled the liquid around with a contemplative frown and sipped again. A three? A four? A six would be too high.
"This one doesn't have that bite at the end," one student commented.
Everyone proceeded to fill out the scoring sheet, including the final criterion, a one to four ranking of their overall impressions. The total points range from 4 to 20, a miniature version of the scale that professional wine spectators use, which ranges from 50 to 100.
As the class progressed, and wines were examined, sniffed and consumed, the mood became noticeably more festive. By 9:40 p.m., only the two 'Port' wines were left. The class had concluded the judging rounds of the Spanish wines. And the verdict?
"Probably the weakest wines we've tasted so far," said Gustafson, explaining that another alcohol, like brandy, is usually mixed in Spanish wine before the fermentation process is complete, leaving a high sugar content with a relatively low amount of alcohol.
Moving across the Iberian peninsula, the first Port wine, Fine Tawny Porto, received mixed reactions.
"I like Port but I don't like this."
"I actually like it," said another.
Senior Chris Ross was a little more specific: "It tastes like that caramel stuff they put in coffee--with alcohol."
The last wine of the day, LBV Porto, ended the class on a high note. The reaction was generally favorable and it was voted that evening's best wine.
Less than a year old, the wine tasting course is still evolving in terms of its curriculum and is still in the process of becoming an establishment at Duke. But, garnering student interest is no problem, as news of the wine-tasting course spreads through flyers and word-of-mouth. To be admitted to the class, a student must be a senior and at least 21 years of age. Class participants are randomly selected through a lottery and must pay a course fee of $125.
"A lot of my friends are in it, and they think it's a great opportunity," said senior Jasi Kamody, who attended a class session as a guest. "From what I hear, it's totally worth the fee."
Students find the course a nice transition into the weekend and learn how to be knowledgeable when ordering wine in restaurants and how to drink responsibility.
"It's the best class I've ever taken at Duke--it's a lot of fun meeting people, and it's different from a regular class setting," said Kelly Williamson, a senior. "I'm learning something I'll be able to use in my life."
Kathy Pazmino, Trinity '02, who took the course last spring, said she "simply could not refuse" when Gustafson asked her for help as a teaching assistant this semester.
"Luckily for me, we are sampling different wines this semester, thus broadening my experiences," Pazmino wrote in an e-mail.
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