Sensation Vin

What you will see

Classes begin with the basics of tasting: how to look at, smell and taste a wine. You then move through blind tastings that explain grape varieties, work in the vineyard, winemaking and the Burgundy classification. Programmes range from short introductions to full-day courses that include several grands crus. Groups are small, with nine people at most, which leaves plenty of room for questions. The introduction, The Essentials, lasts two hours around one of the school's two tasting tables. It covers the geography of the vineyards, the hierarchy of the appellations, the soils and the grapes, then moves on to a blind tasting of eight wines, whites and reds from Chablis to Mâcon, two of them grands crus. No food is served, since it would get in the way of smell and taste. The wines are drawn from more than 500 references kept in the 14th-century cellar, so they change from one class to the next.

History

Sensation Vin opened in Beaune in 2006 with a simple aim: to help people understand Burgundy wine through their own senses. Its tasting rooms mix period materials with modern design, above 14th-century Cistercian cellars where the wines are stored. The school runs around 450 classes a year, about seven in ten in French and three in ten in English, all led by Céline Dandelot or Damien Delattre.