Wine courses

The wine survival course consists of five themes.

Theme 1: Tasting
You will learn all aspects of wine tasting, taking tasting notes and assessing wine quality and storage potential.

Theme 2: Terroir
We look at how grapes grow, and what environmental factors affect the quality of grapes. We also discuss the 14 main French (and international) grape varieties, and sustainability in the vineyard; a subject close to our hearts.

Theme 3: Vinification
We dive into the barrel cellar to see how we make wine from those grapes. You will learn about the hundreds of choices you can make as a winemaker that make your wine even better than the neighbour's.

Theme 4: Bordeaux
We look at the tumultuous history of this wine region, we learn to read labels AND we try to untangle the complicated classification of this region.

Theme 5: Wine & Food
We discuss at what temperature and in which glass wine is at its best, how best to preserve wine and how to safely open a bottle of bubbles. As the most important part of this topic, you will develop the skill to make good wine-food combinations.

Multi-day course
The Wine Survival Course is offered in three different packages of three, four or six consecutive days. Scroll further down the page for all information on the different packages.

Starting with the basics
The Wine Survival Course is open to everyone. No prior knowledge is required to take this course, we start with the basics and build up the level of knowledge.

Professional 
The course is suitable for anyone in a job for which good wine knowledge is a basic requirement, for example in customer service or sales within the hospitality industry, wine specialty shops or wine wholesalers.

Hobby
The course is also for people who are personally interested in wine and want to increase their wine knowledge, overcome their wine-card and wine-shelf fears and serve successful wine-food combinations to their guests.

Minimum age
The minimum age for participation is 18 years.

Castle finologist Meriam
The Wine Survival course will be taught by Meriam Last. For eight years, winemaker daughter-in-law Meriam has been enthusiastically giving tours and wine tastings at Château Gort & Gort.

Meriam has completed the WSET up to Level 3 and holds the Diploma of Vinologist/Sommelier from the Foundation for Professionalism in the Hospitality Industry. Inspired by her background as a teacher in hotel education, living and working at Château Gort & Gort and the wine knowledge and humour of her Beau-Père Ilja, Meriam developed the Wine Survival Course.

During the course, participants will also meet other Château residents and colleagues.

In the picker's attic of the Château
The theory and wine tasting classes will be held in the picker's attic of Château Gort & Gort. Under a beautiful old cockscomb structure and through man-sized windows overlooking the château's courtyard and garden, you will learn all about terroir, wine vinification and world wine city Bordeaux.

In the vineyard and wine cellar
With our heels in the vineyard clay, we discuss sustainable viticulture, and you will learn the technical tricks of the winemaking trade in our barrel cellar.

At the end of the course, you will be officially inaugurated as a Wine tiger.
You will have achieved at least the following learning objectives:

Learning outcome 1
Be able to systematically taste, describe and assess wine and make a tasting note.

Learning outcome 2
Understanding the environmental influences and the different options for grape growing in the vineyard, and how they affect the style and quality of wine.

Learning outcome 3
Knowing France's 14 most common grape varieties, knowing what wine styles they can produce and how they are represented in the rest of the world.

Learning outcome 4
Understanding how vinification and bottle aging affect the style and quality of red, white, rosé, sparkling, sweet and fortified wines.

Learning Outcome 5
Discovering the history, classifications, different wine regions and corresponding wine styles of Bordeaux.

Learning Outcome 6
Deciphering the different terms on a wine label and learning how to choose from a wine list.

Learning Outcome 7
Understanding the main principles and processes involved in storing and serving wine.

Learning Outcome 8
Teaching the skill of creating successful wine-food combinations.

Wine
Dozens of top wines will be tasted during the course.

Toolkit
Each participant will receive a Wine Survival Toolkit at the start of the course, consisting of a linen Château Gort & Gort bag containing a set of six wine glasses, a corkscrew, a Wine Tiger t-shirt, a tasting notebook and a textbook specially developed for the course packed with wine knowledge and tools to enjoy wine even more.

Certificate 
At the end of the course, you will be inaugurated as a Wine Tiger and receive a certificate of participation as proof of the mountains of new wine knowledge and tasting skills you have gained.

Sure! For professionalisation and team building.

If you want your company to participate in the course, contact Meriam via email for the possibilities: [email protected]. We can also provide a tailor-made programme. 

You can! We have room for groups of up to 16 people.

A private course can be booked for groups of 6 to 16 people on dates of your choice based on availability.

Ilja is often travelling for recordings or his books, so we cannot promise this. When Ilja is home, he will of course be happy to raise a glass with you. Can you think of a fun question for the lucky dip?

In Dutch.

Look carefully at the different packages to see what is included and excluded.
We recommend you take out your own travel and/or cancellation insurance.

We will be going out into the vineyard a lot, so bring boots/shoes that can withstand mud! A mackintosh and/or umbrella is also a good idea. 

No, if you indicate this when booking, we will do our utmost to take this into account!

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