BUSN2105 Wine Evaluation, Rating and Pricing

Wine Evaluation, Rating and Pricing aims at exploring and conducting the fundamentals of tasting wine in a professional way, describing and evaluating wines, rating them and understanding the linkages between rating and wine pricing. Instructors and students will be using a globally accepted and applied rating system based on the 20- and the 100-point schemes. Additionally, pricing structures will be explained with respect to tasted wines and the relationship between objective wine attributes, their rating and subsequent likely expected price in market. Different market channels (and associated pricing structures) are also analysed and discussed (cellar-door price for end users/consumers, retail price restaurants, retail price traders).

Topics include all important facts, parameters and terms to know for tasting, evaluation and the price estimation of wines.

This topic aims to introduce students to wine tasting as a professional activity. Aspects of taste and other sensory sensations are discussed alongside their relationship to specific wine styles (including the impact of specific production techniques), pricing and food pairing. Students will gain an understanding of the differing approaches to tasting taken by a range of professions and how each describes wine differently. Wines from key world regions will also be discussed as well as the fundamentals of wine rating systems.

1. Evaluate various wines by describing their physiological structure, fundamental tastes and other sensory sensations
2. Conduct a wine tasting in a professional way, using tastes in wine components and applying the fundamentals of wine descriptions
3. Categorise selected “Key tastes of the wine world” (e.g. German Riesling, Porto, Champagne, Burgundy, Tokaj etc.)
4. Rate and price a wine
5. Apply the basic components in traditional wine and food pairing