I finish my first week teaching the introductory wine class at the Dallas branch of the Cordon Bleu today, and I have enjoyed it. A couple of observations:
• Most of the students, who are younger than 30, don't seem to drink wine. They know it's out there; it just doesn't much interest them. This contradicts any number of studies that say that the students' generation (the Millenials) is becoming more interested in wine.
• Many of them know about Two Buck Chuck, the inexpensive wine sold only at the Trader Joe's grocery store chain. This is especially interesting, since there are no Trader Joe's in Texas.
• The idea that the government, as in some European countries, can regulate what grapes are grown where and which grapes can be used to make specific wine strikes many of them as silly. I mention this because -- especially in Texas -- so many people are worried that the schools don't do a good job of teaching the values of free enterprise.
• The 1855 Bordeaux wine classification is even more confusing than I thought, and I thought it was pretty confusing already. It's one thing to know; it's something else entirely to explain it to 30-some odd students. How do you come up for a good answer to: "Why did the French do it that way?"



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