Advanced course on wine faults

Participants tasted wines deliberately dosed with compounds responsible for sensory faults and studied each fault’s origin, sensory effect, mechanism, development, prevention and possible correction. Topics included under-ripeness, fungal damage, pre-fermentation and fermentation contamination, volatile and lactic acidity, sulphurous aromas, Brettanomyces, excessive buttery notes, vessel and closure faults, cork taint and atypical ageing in white wines. Blind tasting was used to build recognition and sensory memory.