Exciting breaking news! The Université de Bourgogne in Dijon is offering a free, online wine course starting May 21. There are a few glitches in the registration process which I’ll outline below. For now, let’s just say that if you’re following the instructions in this article and are on a Mac, use Firefox, not Safari.
Background
We learned about this course via Decanter.com. From their description:
The Open Wine University – Université de la Vigne et du Vin pour Tous – will offer the dual-language courses starting on 21 May 2015.
Course content has been put together by the main teaching staff of the Jules Guyot Wine and Vine Institute including Sandrine Rousseaux and Olivier Jacquet, with input from winemakers including Françoise Arpaillanges of Domaine Françoise Jeanniard in Pernand-Vergelesses.
The course covers subjects from viticulture, understanding terroir, tasting techniques and vinification, alongside the history and cultural importance of wine, and will be presented over five weeks in various formats from online seminars to videos-blogs and interactive tastings.
‘I am a graduate of oenology from the Jules Guyot Institute,’ Arpaillanges told Decanter.com. ‘So, I was happy to contribute to the course research. I gave background on understanding the different terroir and climats of Burgundy, and the historical basis for today’s vineyard locations. This will now be turned into parts of the teaching material, although I am not teaching directly myself.’
Links to registration and other information are available via Americans in France. Tip: right-click the link and select “open link in new tab.”
Registration Issues
The MOOC registration site has a few problems. First, don’t try to register with Safari unless you’re in one of the following countries:
If you try to register as “Other Country” with Safari you won’t be able to type anything into the text box that opens. Save yourself some trouble and use Firefox instead. Here’s the form:
Click the pull-down menu that lists MOOC providers. Relax — there aren’t all that many.
In fact, here’s the entire list of providers. Make the obvious choice.
Once you’ve clicked Université de Bourgogne you’ll need to click the Search button. The site is not up to date on php. Search will show this:
Click the obvious choice and you’ll see this:
Course Home Page
Be careful! You’re signed in. Don’t click the “Enroll” button unless you’re fairly sure you want to enroll.
As of May 13, 2015, 2:00 GMT, the page shown above is only available in French. Here’s a link that will show you the page using Google translate.
Read the description, look at the schedule, study the syllabus, review the instructors’ backgrounds, then decide if you want to enroll. If so, all you do is click Enroll:
Enroll!
Unfortunately, I have to work on May 21, so I will miss the opening session. I hope the folks putting this together will supply podcasts. Stay tuned.
