Wine club adds class to drinking

Author: Julia Mckinnon

Like many students at Middlebury, Sean Breen '06 went abroad during his junior year, made phenomenal friends and gained life experiences and new skills. But instead of becoming fluent in Arabic or Russian, Breen became fluent in another language - the language of wine. Breen has brought his newfound passion back to Vermont in the form of the Middlebury Wine Circle, a group he founded for wine lovers and experts.

Breen's intrigue for wine was first sparked by his father during his sophomore year in college, when they travelled to Burgundy, France, together. Back home in New Jersey, Breen met Chris Cree, one of a select 23 "Masters of Wine" in the United States. Cree helped arrange for the Breens to meet with various well-known wine makers, such as Daniel Rion and Joseph Drouhin, in France. Throughout their trip, Breen and his father visited various wine merchants and vineyards around the French countryside, opening the door to Breen's future as an oenophile and leading him to begin reading extensively on the subject.

After his whirlwind tour of Burgundy, Breen next travelled to study abroad at Oxford University in England. Oxford has a long-standing affinity for wine that goes back a long way. Each college within the university even has its own wine cellar. There, Breen joined the Oxford University Wine Circle, a club whose membership involves an application process. He and roommate Daniel Phillips '06 were accepted and soon became members of the Oxford Wine Circle.

Within this society Breen began his involvement with the Blind Tasting Team. Each week, members of the team became acquainted with various wines in preparation for a competition that is held each year between the Cambridge and Oxford University teams. This event is "the oldest wine tasting competition in the world," and only six members of the team are selected to taste at the match. Breen was one of the lucky few selected to compete on the Oxford team. In the weeks before the competition, Breen compared his training to that of a rigorous crew team. Five or six nights a week, the group met for a few hours sampling six or seven different wines at each sitting.

The day of the competition, Breen found himself sitting at a large table alongside Cambridge students, all of whom were presented with six white wines. The white wine tasting was followed by a break, after which six red wines were brought out. The tasters took notes on each of the wines, detailing the impressions the wine made on the nose (oaked, fruit character), then the palate (acidity, alcohol) and finally commented on the wine's finish (round, lengthy). Each wine totaled 20 points and the contestants gained points based on their conjectures about the kind of grape, the region the wine came from, the wine's sub-region and the year it was made.

The match was followed by what Breen described as a "huge, boozy lunch" with more wine along with festivities. Breen's team member, mentor and close friend Yohan Graham, won the award as best individual wine taster. Regrettably, Oxford University lost, "but it was the closest scoring in history," Breen noted.

Breen seems keen on cultivating a culture of wine back home at Middlebury. Upon their return, Breen and Phillips wanted to share their newfound knowledge with the Middlebury community. Breen initially started up a Saturday evening gathering with friends. This group became the Middlebury Wine Circle, and it now consists of 10-12 people - though sometimes as many as 25 show up - who bring $5 each week and receive a detailed lesson about how to taste wine. The taste session is always blind. "It's easier to appreciate the wine for what it is if you don't know what it is," Breen says.

Breen sees his wine circle as a fun activity but also as a service to friends who plan to have careers in big companies. "It's important for seniors going into business to know something about wine," he says.

Breen found that his zeal for blind wine tasting led him to some unexpected affairs. His interest has even spiced up his job applications, serving as a pitch to banks. Blind wine tasting is "an exercise in problem solving," Breen says. "It's much more of a science than people think."

Last week Phillips and Breen traveled to Dartmouth to teach a wine tasting workshop at a fraternity. The summer after graduation Breen plans to drive across the country to Napa Valley, California.

"The more you drink wine the more you can appreciate all wines," Breen said. "I can appreciate even more now a normal table wine."

Breen has returned to Middlebury a true oenophile after his year of studying wine at Oxford and has furthered his knowledge by learning how to teach others about his passion for wine. Now wherever Breen travels he will bring his nose for wine as well as his enjoyment in spreading his teachings of wine connoisseurship.