THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * Saturday/Sunday, September 14 - 15, 2019 | D1

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Those idle, summer days are over. Here, 50 diverting ways to get studious again this fall—from nerding­outon Beethoven in Vienna to mastering Japanese home­cooking. Pencils ready?

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * Saturday/Sunday, September 14 - 15, 2019 | D7

THE FALL OFF DUTY 50 | EATING & DRINKING

ON WINE / LETTIE TEAGUE

root stock and pruning.The audience for these

wonky podcasts is clearly pre-sumed to be more knowledge-able than the one targeted byPhiladelphia-based sommelierMarnie Old with her video se-ries “Wine Simplified” onYouTube. Her style is crispand engaging, and though hervideos were produced severalyears ago, the topics, such as“How to Taste Wine Like aPro,” are evergreen.

I liked the videos of a fewother sommeliers, includingSteven Grubbs, whose smart,breezy series, “Wine’s Cool”was created to educate thestaff of Empire State Southand Five & Ten restaurants, inAtlanta and Athens, Ga. “Wedecided to make a series ofshort, unintimidating videosthat would (hopefully) takepeople quickly from squarezero to having a little workingbackground,” he wrote in anemail. After Mr. Grubbs up-loaded them to YouTube, Mr.Grubbs discovered that otherrestaurateurs were usingthem. “If anyone else learnedfrom them, great,” he said.

While the above offeringsare available for free, someonline courses can be ratherpricey. For instance, Napa Val-ley Wine Academy conductscourses that cost hundreds ofdollars, including a “Napa Val-ley Wine Expert” certificationfor $395. Since that was morethan my last round-trip ticketfrom New York to San Fran-cisco, I enrolled instead in“Get Wine-Smart” (ud-emy.com), taught by JohnBoyer, a geography professorat Virginia Tech. The course,from online-learning platformUdemy, cost me a mere $12.

Mr. Boyer’s energy isequaled only by his flamboy-ant, invariably plaid ward-robe, and his pedagogicalstyle is informational with anemphasis on fun. His videoscover all the basics—fromgrape varieties to buying,storing and serving wine—asMr. Boyer tastes and riffs

Point, Click andDrinkIn a Little Erudition

LEARNING about wine onlineseems easy enough—not tomention affordable. Yet afterexploring all manner of inter-net wine education, I’m notready to declare it the ideal fo-rum—at least not yet.

Many self-styled “wine edu-cators” online claim to be cer-tified sommeliers, but thatdoesn’t mean they haveworked in a restaurant. Othersare winemakers, adjunct pro-fessors or simply oenophileswith a pedagogical bent.Whether via video or podcast,

the education they offer tendsto fall into two categories: ba-sic (grape names, how to holda glass) or wonky (the role oftannins, grapevine blights).

The educational content ac-tual wine professionals pro-duce mostly falls into the lat-ter camp, and podcasts appearto be the preferred format.The decidedly wonky “Guildof Sommeliers Podcast”(guildpodcast.com) featuressommeliers such as GeoffKruth and Kelli White inter-viewing top talent. In an epi-

sode last fall, Mr. Kruth andVirginia Wilcox, winemaker atVasse Felix in Western Austra-lia, discussed tannins in a sur-prisingly lively chat. “I thinkyou can make or break a wineby getting the tannins wrong,”Ms. Wilcox said. She enumer-ated various categories of tan-nin, including “astringent,”“squeaky,” “toothy,” “tongue”and “green”—the ones that“push to the back of yourthroat.” I learned a lot andplan to invoke the term“squeaky tannins” very soon.

Another sommelier turnedpodcast host, Levi Dalton, re-cords conversations withwine professionals in his pro-fessedly “tiny living room” inNew York. His show, “I’llDrink to That!” (illdrink-tothatpod.com), features con-versations on topics nonpro-fessionals might findabstruse. A conversation be-tween Mr. Dalton and Benja-min Leroux, a young Bur-gundy vigneron, was a far-ranging, rather baggydiscourse on topics including

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Put AnotherPin in YourFlavor MapChef Jing “Jenny” Gaolaunched her Fly by Jingline of sauces and season-ings to school the world inthe authentic flavors of hernative Sichuan. Full of erjing tiao chiles and rarepeppercorns, her SichuanChili Crisp enlivens eggs orpizza. Use the Mala SpiceMix to umami-bomb pop-corn, or the slow-brewedZhong Dumpling Sauce toupgrade frozen pot stickers.Preorder all 3 for $46, fly-byjing.com—E.P.

Bake Like anEngineerThe Silpat Perfect Pastry Mat is a boonfor any baker thwarted by clingy dough.Unfurl it to create an instant nonsticksurface. Made in France of silicone-coated fiberglass mesh, it’s so effectiveyou don’t even need to dust the surfacewith flour. The mat also doubles as aneducational pastry blueprint, with ruledborders and stenciled circles rangingfrom 6 to 12 inches—an invaluable assistwhen a recipe calls for absolute precision.$40, williams-sonoma.com—G.G.

along with sidekick RandallHorst of Vintage Cellar wineshop in Blacksburg, Va., wheresome of the series is filmed.

Less fun but more famous,wine critic James Suckling hasjoined top chefs (Gordon Ram-say) and movie directors(Martin Scorsese) at Master-Class, among the most hypedonline courses. “James Suck-ling Teaches Wine Apprecia-tion” (masterclass.com) costme $90 ($180 buys an all-classyearlong pass).

“This class is going to belike staying with me for theweek,”Mr. Suckling promisedearly on in the series of vid-eos, and he was right—the dayI devoted to his 11-lessoncourse felt like a week. The se-ries alternated between pic-turesque scenery and shots ofMr. Suckling tasting wine af-ter wine, rating his satisfac-tion numerically.

An Italian Sauvignon Blancwas “super steely, fresh, lay-ered” according to Mr. Suck-ling. “I’m 94 on that,” he pro-nounced—meaning heawarded the wine a 94-pointscore. In Lesson Four, hetasted the Super Tuscan Tig-nanello with Albiera Antinori,president of the wine com-pany Marchesi Antinori. Whenthey got to the 2015, he let herknow he’d rated the wine 98points. “It hasn’t been pub-lished yet so keep it to your-self,” he admonished.

My online educationyielded plenty of information,some of it useful, some not somuch. I remain in search ofthe ideal combination of con-tent and delivery. And I won’tbe adopting the phrase “I’m94 on that” anytime soon.

Email Lettie:wine@wsj.com

Her style is crisp andengaging, and thetopics are evergreen.

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Kolsvart, a small maker of gummycandies in Malmö, Sweden, getsspecific with its Swedish fish tax-onomy, offering sour blue-berry Piggvar (shapedlike turbot), sour rasp-berry Röding (arctic char)and elderflower Gäddan(pike). These chewy sweetsderive their jewel hues fromgrape-skin extract, carrot con-centrate and turmeric, and hap-pen to be vegan and gluten-free.A portion of the proceeds fromthe Piggvar and Gäddan benefitsthe Swedish Anglers Association,which promotes clean waters andhealthy fish populations. $12, bon-bonnyc.com—G.G.

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