Over the past few weeks, I’ve been logging in week by week and dedicating a couple of hours to a wine course from the University of Adelaide that is a completely free wine course. I found out about it because I was being a massive cheapskate when researching wine courses at the start of the year. If you’ve ever tried to do the same, you’ll know that whoever teaches these courses practical wants your arm and leg to teach you anything about wine.

It’s a real shame that there isn’t much out there at a decent price. I mean, not all of us are able to fork out a few hundred dollars to learn. Sometimes we also just want a bit of a basic overview, or are just curious to learn more about a topic we love! I was searching for the ideal course that would help me learn just a little more about wine without breaking the bank. I figured once I had whetted my appetite for wine knowledge, I would be able to build on this knowledge with paid courses that would offer more formal education. But you’ve got to start somewhere right?

Hello? Is it free you’re looking for?

So I was looking around for a course that would give me a good overview of wine but wouldn’t cost the earth. Not so much to ask right? Well, luckily I found this article which was talking about a new course that was being offered for free. My ears perked up – free you say? How? Where? Why?

That’s right folks, the beautiful people at the University of Adelaide want us all to learn more about Australian wine, so much so that they offer a great six-week online course for free called ‘World of Wine: From Grape to Glass‘. Anyone can enrol, and if you want a certificate at the end you can pay a nominal amount to have your participation formalised.

Ok, you found a free wine course, what’s it all about?

I know the initial thought you might be having is that anything that can be offered for free can’t be that great, right? I mean we live in a world where everything comes at a price, and this should be no different. Well, I’m here to tell you that when it comes to this free wine course, it is incorrect.

If you’re looking for a detailed, in-depth overview of how to taste wine, different wine regions and all that juicy stuff, this isn’t the course for you. The course does go into wine tasting, but focuses more on the process of producing wine, particularly in relation to the Australian wine industry.

In this free wine course, over six weeks you learn about how a bottle of wine is made, from choosing the right plot of land to planting the grapes, to harvesting and then producing the wine. Each week teachers from the University of Adelaide take you on a journey through these different parts of winemaking and explain exactly what goes into it. They also bring winemakers from across South Australia in to provide their take on the winemaking process.

What I loved about it

I’ll be honest, my favourite week was the first week. The course begins with teaching you how to taste wine, and this was definitely where I got the most value. I learnt so much about each type of wine and what you should look for, and they even provided handy hints on tasting notes. This is something I’ve never formally been educated on, I’ve just picked up stuff from drinking too much at wineries (all in the name of learning, right?) so I found it really beneficial to have someone explain the process of tasting wine.

In the first week, you were also encouraged to try tasting yourself, and I was sold. I mean any course that gets you to pull out wine to try while you are learning online, and encourages you to try more wine, is a winner in my books. Educators take note, this is a great draw card.

The next weeks of the course I found really interesting. They were things I never would have thought to learn. I picked up so many bits of knowledge. How wine is impacted by the type of soil, the growing conditions and how it is harvested and made. I definitely already knew some of the content, but the detail they went in to was great. It really helped me build new knowledge around wine that I never would have had before.

The course also has a lot of interaction which keeps it interesting. Whether it is posting your favourite wine label on a forum board, or creating your own wine using what you’ve learnt, the course kept you coming back and was actually really fun. It also only took an hour or two a week, so was really easy to fit into a busy schedule.

You’ll enjoy this course if…

This course isn’t for everyone. If you already have a lot of wine knowledge, you may not be interested, particularly in the first week. However, I think the technical aspects that are explored in later weeks are really interesting, and something you often don’t learn.

If you don’t have much wine knowledge this free wine course is perfect for you. It teaches you the basics but so much about what goes into a bottle of wine. It helps you to appreciate the wine on a new level, and how to take to your next wine tasting!

If you have a short attention span, you’ll probably enjoy the first week the most. It is definitely the most practical. I would highly recommend even the first week to get an understanding of wine tasting. But if you can, stick the course through to the end. Although some parts are quite technical, it is all brought together in a way that’s really easy to understand.

The final word

I wasn’t expecting much from a free wine course, but I was so glad I gave this one a go. Knowledge is power, and I believe the more you can learn and expose yourself to, the better off you’ll be. This free wine course from the University of Adelaide ended up teaching me a lot, and now I want more! I can’t wait to do my next course so I can learn even more about wine.

So give it a go, and let me know in the comments below what you think!

You can enrol in this free wine course from the University of Adelaide here.