January 19, 2005
Getting the Most Out of YostLast fall I took Norman Yost’s wine class, Basic Winemaking, through Allan Hancock College. It was more fun than a barrel of monkeys!
About 20 of us took the class, and it was hands on. We made chardonnay, pinot gris, and two pinot noirs-one from Clone 23 fruit in Solomon Hills Vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley, and one from Santa Rita Hills fruit that Norm had gotten for the class.
I’m signing up for the sequel- Ag Business 311, Basic Winemaking 2 (Ticket #4062). This session runs eleven weeks. It starts Saturday, January 29 and runs through April 23.
The class meets Saturday mornings from 9-11:50 a.m. at Central Coast Wine Services in Santa Maria
Norm told me that in this class we would be finishing up some of the 2004 wines we made in Basic Winemaking 1.
He also told me there would be different winemaking topics to balance out the class.
One class topic would be on barrels he told me, and that he has scheduled a guest speaker, a French oak barrel broker.
Norm is also scheduling a grower to speak on the topic winemaking in the vineyard.
Other topics will include problem wines, wine-tasting seminars, fining agents used in winemaking, he told me.
Other topics to be announced.
Norm Yost is a very proficient teacher and a very accomplished winemaker. With 20 years or so of experience, Norm has made wine in both northern California and Oregon. Norm and his wife, Pam, have been here in Santa Barbara County for a number of years with their “kids,” the goats of Flying Goat, and Norm makes Flying Goat Cellars pinot noir over in Lompoc.
His pinot noirs I have direct hands on experience selling, and they are one of the best selling wines I have ever sold in my last dozen years of retailing.
When I took the class last fall, people would say to me, “taking a class-shouldn’t you be teaching the class?”
I’ve done my share of teaching over the years. I used to tell my own students, “The day I think I know all there is to know about wine is the day I should give it up.” I would further embellish that caveat with the phrase, “and switch to buckets of sweet manhattans.”
For people who know me well, for folks who frequently eat and drink with me, they know that a well made sweet manhattans I view as an art form, and that I am about as passionate about fine Bourbon whiskey as I am about wine.
So I am enthusiastically looking forward to taking Norm Yost’s Basic Winemaking 2.
Call the college at (805) 922-6966 for more information. You can register on line and get the info you need. I found Allan Hancock College on line by Googling it.
Times wine columnist, Bob Senn, lives in the Los Alamos Valley and owns the Los Olivos Wine & Spirits Emporium.
