“A bottle of good wine, like a good act, shines ever in the retrospect.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson had it right about special wines being eminently memorable, though he forgot to add the part about how wine tasting, like a hot date, owes so much to anticipation.

And as much as I like to think that I am inching ever closer to the Zen mystery, it’s really difficult not to put expectations on a tasting in which magnums of 1995 Champagne and Graham’s Vintage Port (1977), as well as bottles of 1981 Vieux Chateau Certan, take second billing.

Which is exactly what happens when you have a bottle of (genuine) 1929 Haut-Brion in the lineup.

That’s because the 1929 Haut-Brion is one of those extremely rare triple threats: world-class producer, renowned vintage (before every other release was deemed “vintages of the century” in Bordeaux) and rare old wine (in decent condition).

Or so we had hoped, anyway.

As it turns out, that fabled bottle that had me (and several other guests at the Columbia Firehouse restaurant in old town Alexandria, VA) buzzing with anticipation last week had apparently leaked at some point in it’s 81-year history.

Uh-oh.

We (a group of about 15 people) were assembled as the hand-picked guests of my buddy Jason Whiteside, DWS (Washington Wine Academy instructor, friend of the Dude and frequent guest poster here) to celebrate the achievement of his WSET Diploma in Wine & Spirits (a pre-req for entrance into the Masters of Wine program).  It’s a difficult and hard-earned achievement, well-worthy of opening some special bottles.  As our generous host put it after inspecting the most special of that night’s bottles, “this wine could be deader than Lincoln”…

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The March issue of Sommelier Journal is dedicated to the topic of wine education, and (as always) is well worth a read for wine pros and serious wine geeks alike.  It contains a great follow-up article by Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser on the current status of the wine certification landscape, so the issue got me thinking (as it always does) about repercussions beyond the world of professional wine service, and into the worlds of wine writing and passionate wine enthusiasts.

And it got me thinking that YOU probably should get a wine certification.  it also got me thinking about the remote area of Shompole in Kenya, where even in a place where you have to buzz the runway in a small Cesna to scare zebras off of it before you can land, they saw value in the WSET certification (more on that in a minute).

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’re a passionate wine enthusiast, a wine professional, or a wine writer (or any combination of one or more of those).  Actually, according to Alexa.com stats on my blog, chances are you’re a female between the ages of 25 and 44 with a decent amount of disposable income, living in the U.S. and surfing this blog from your work computer (shame on you!).

Anyway, I am growing increasingly convinced that wine certification suits 1WineDude.com readers, and is growing more an more applicable to a larger and larger audience of wine lovers.  And I’m gonna give you three reasons why YOU should get a cert.  And No, I don’t work for any of those certification bodies.

I know what you might be thinking, which is something along the lines of “Why do I need a certification to be an expert on how much I like or dislike what I shove into my mouth?!??” And the answer of course is that you don’t need a certification for that.

You need it for other reasons.  Hear me out before you shut me out – first I need to take you to the hot salt flats of the Great Rift Valley in remote Kenya…

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The rage is relentless
We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change
And to counteract
We gotta take the power back

Sometimes I wonder if the Internet should have a theme song.  I’d nominate Rage Against The Machine’s Take The Power Back, given the possibilities of democratization that the connected economy presents to us nearly every day.

That’s an overly-dramatic introduction to a couple of on-line surveys… but what the hell, why be afraid to revel in our time, right?

Anyway… frequent 1WineDude readers will know my good buddy (and uber wine-geek) Jason Whiteside, who is currently finishing up the challenging WSET Diploma program (the stepping-stone into Master of Wine qualification).  Jason is taking on a bit of wine consumer research as part of his WSET work, and he needs your help!

Below you will find links to two (very, very quick) surveys that Jason is running to collect consumer’s views on two hot topics in the wine world.  The first, rising alcohol levels, is a topic that generates just about as much passion as any other being discussed around wine today. The second is a more specific exploration into what wine consumers think about Sauvignon Blanc (which surprisingly also brings out strong opinions among true wine geeks).

I’ll defer to Jason to introduce the surveys:

“These surveys represent a small amount of consumer research, which is being done for the WSET Diploma (the Diploma is divided into six learning Units, and one of them is on “The Business of Wine”). Both surveys are about ten questions each, and should take less than three minutes to complete. Consumer preference doesn’t garner the attention that Wine Critic preference does, but surveys like this can help swing the power back to the people. Thank you very much for your time in filling out the surveys. Your answers will remain confidential; even I will not be able to see who answered what.”

The results will be published in a future 1WineDude article, so do us a favor and take 5 minutes to tell us your thoughts!

Have your say about Alcohol Levels and Wine:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=phsAHStgKrfzRRTWFmGFoQ_3d_3d

Tell us what you think about White Wine and Sauvignon Blanc:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=95Sodl9Wgd0d2i9iTu2gXw_3d_3d

Cheers!