This multi-part series is designed for food and wine professionals, wine judges, wine educators, wine and food journalists, wine students and anyone who relies on their senses to assess, evaluate, critique and/or write about wine and food. 

There are four parts to this series, each with three sessions.

Please work through the course at your own pace. You can download the speakers' presentations by using the 'Download PDF' tabs below the video.

Ep. 1: Defining the Terms  

Ep. 2: Structure and Construction in White Varieties  

Ep. 3: Structure and Construction in Red Varieties  

Recent discussion in wine tasting about how best to understand and describe wines has moved beyond flavour and has focused on other constituent elements of a wine.  In these webinars I discuss two important components of any wine: structure (tannin structure in red wines and acid structure in white wines) and 'construction.'  A wine's 'construction' is the way that elements such as fruit, acidity and tannins interact to create a distinctive taste impression.  

In the first webinar, we will define the terms of the discussion and explore their application through a tasting of one white and one red grape variety. In the second webinar, we will do a more thorough analysis of structure and construction relating to three white varieties, and the third webinar will be dedicated to exploring three red varieties.  

Nick is an independent fine wine advisor living in Florida. Through his company, Vintage Variation LLC, he advises private clients, retailers and other wine businesses on all aspects of fine wine. Nick's wine career began at the University of Cambridge where he was a member of the successful Cambridge University blind wine tasting team in the 2011 varsity match against Oxford. His first wine job was at Cambridge Wine Merchants. After graduating with a PhD in Theology, he started work as an auction specialist at Sotheby's in London, before moving to New York in 2012. There, he quickly became the buyer for Sotheby's Wine retail store. He left Sotheby's at the end of 2018 to start his own business. He published his first book, Beyond Flavour, in 2020. A guide to wine tasting, it has received critical acclaim from Wine Spectator and the Wall Street Journal among others.