Wheel of Misfortune OR "Screw it & pass the Bubbly!"

I’ve posted previously about my take on the “main” (aka internationally-recognized) streams of wine certification. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to take one of the certification exams, you should check out the World Wine Challenge game that I stumbled upon recently.

It’s a simple flash game – a) spin the wheel, b) answer the question, and c) unless you’ve done some hard-core wine studying, prepare to become the wheel’s b*tch. The questions are reasonably tough – more difficult than most of the questions in the WSET Intermediate certification exam, and almost consistently as tricky as those in the Certified Specialist of Wine (CSW) exam.

How did I do? Not as well as I should have considering how recently I passed the WSET Advanced and CSW exams. So… I said screw it and decided to drink some wine instead (back to the old-fashioned wine study method!).

For those times that you say “Screw it! Let’s have a drink…” this holiday season, I advise you not to forget the Bubbly (aka sparkling wine). Here in the Northeast, when the weather gets cooler we start to gravitate towards the heavy, alcoholic, and very red wine styles to give our insides that warm-and-fuzzy feeling. So we tend to forget how awesome it is having a bottle of bubbly around for the holidays.

My buddy Jason has recently penned a list of his holiday fizz favorites for Main Line magazine. A snippet from his picks are below (click to enlarge). If you’re in the mood to splurge, I highly suggest “La Grande Dame” (if you’re also in the Philly area, I also highly suggest that you e-mail me when you open it!).