Steph Bouvard
To get the most that you can out of a wine tasting and to substantiate a complete understanding of wine, you must step away from text books and actually taste the wine. And by taste we mean understand and truly absorb every drop with every sense. Make your next tasting a full-body experience with these useful insider tasting secrets.
Growing up as a child in France in the heart of the Rhone Valley smack between Hermitage & Chateauneuf du Pape, the fermented grape juice was a staple on the dining table. Of course, I was too young to actually drink it but I remember being really intrigued by all the “hmm” “aaaahhhh” “oooooh” “superb” emanating from the adults around me upon sipping their glass… as I used to absolutely adore helping my dad in the kitchen and sticking my nose into every possible food as well as tasting everything at every state of preparation it was only natural that I would start sticking my nose into wine glasses to get an idea of the aromas. Soon enough I would be able to depict a Croze Hermitage from a Saint Joseph and a Cote du Rhone, a Cahors from a Margaux, and so the sensory bank of memories started building itself instinctively.
Fast forward a few years my dad then introduced me to the concept of food and wine pairing, he would say things like “take a bite of this then have a sip of that” . Wow! My mind and needless to say may senses were completely blown away. That’s it, I want to be a “Nez du Vin” ! So we started looking at the different education routes to do so, sadly my world crushed, there were only 2 options: go down a heavy scientific chemistry route, well that wouldn’t work given I was majoring my baccalaureat in foreign languages, literature and art; the other option was definitely possible as they only accepted boys onto their programs.
While I wasn’t able to kick off higher education in wine to pursue a career, I still very much enjoyed traveling around the world to discover local culinary tradition as well as visit vineyards and wineries. Over the past 30 years I have been so fortunate to visit vineyards from the old AND the new world, from Europe to Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Australia, and even unexpected wineries in Bali and Myanmar. Now I live in the US I am also fortunate to be able to go to California, New York and Oregon.
It wasn’t until 2019 when I met a Philip Patti, Pinot Noir pro at a wine tasting event in Gascony that I was aware women were now welcome onto Sommelier programs. That encounter planted a seed and the rest is history!
How to get started and what my approach was
I started my wine education with the Court of Master Sommeliers America (CMS-A), I took the Introductory course & workshop and successfully passed the exam soon to be followed by the Deductive Wine Tasting Workshop which was to act as a rehearsal to my Sommelier Certification exam a few weeks later. Only that was 2020 and next thing we knew it was lockdown.
My appetite for learning and pursuing my education only grew bigger and stronger. I thus applied to the NYC International Wine Center and was admitted onto the level 2 WSET program, passed with Merit and moved onto the level 3 which I also passed with merit.
The day before level 3 exam I had a conversation with Mary Gorman Mc-Adams, MW and swore to her “that’s it, am done” and she smiled and said “yes we’ll see”. The following day I left the exam room, got home, and can you guess what I was googling? Yes, that’s right, I was looking up level 4 and Master of Wine programs!
Seriously Wine is THE deepest rabbit hole you can fall down, once you start you just can’t stop. And the more you learn, the more there is the learn and the more you want to learn.
So here we are, almost half way through my WSET level 4 diploma, and yes, I dropped the MW pin on my horizon. How will I get there you ask me? well follow me you shall see!
