Class Central is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Wine Tasting: Common Wine Faults

University of California, Davis via Coursera

Go to class Write review

Details

Go to class

Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

3 weeks, 1 hour a week
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

German, Hindi, Pashto, Russian, French, Bengali, Chinese, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Urdu, Kazakh, Swedish, Korean, Portuguese, Greek, English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Thai, Japanese, Azerbaijani, Polish, Farsi, Dutch, Turkish

Found in

Part of

Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis

Overview

Google, IBM & Meta Certificates – 40% Off

One plan covers every Professional Certificate on Coursera.

Unlock All Certificates

Wine faults can change how a wine smells, tastes, and is judged. In this beginner-friendly course, you’ll learn how to identify common wine faults, understand what causes them, and build the sensory skills to recognize problems with more confidence. You’ll examine the philosophy behind what counts as a fault in wine and explore how some characteristics may be seen differently across tasting traditions. The course covers the difference between a fault and a defect, along with classic issues such as oxidation, reduction, cork taint, microbial faults, sulfites, and acetic acid faults. You’ll also compare Old World and New World views on these characteristics and consider when a trait may add complexity rather than signal a flaw. This course builds on earlier tasting concepts while remaining accessible to beginners. Through guided activities, discussion prompts, and a graded knowledge check, you’ll practice spotting wine problems and create wine defect sniff standards to strengthen fault recognition in real tasting settings.

Syllabus

Getting Started
Common Wine Faults

Is there something wrong with this wine? In this module, we’ll examine the philosophy behind what actually constitutes a fault in wine. We’ll identify the most often-encountered faults and explain how to recognize them as well as determine what caused them. We’ll also examine the Old World and New World sensibilities toward some of these faults, and discuss how some so-called faults may really be attributes that contribute to a wine’s complexity. We’ll differentiate between a fault and a defect and examine the range of classic faults and their origins. You’ll learn techniques for spotting problems and create wine defect sniff standards to practice fault recognition.

Review

This assessment covers the identification, causes, and impact of common wine faults and defects, including how they are recognized and interpreted in different wine traditions.