I want desperately to impress the man from Margaux who brings boxes of world-renowned Bordeaux wines.

"Madam Moulton," I hear my professor say, "please stand and perform this blind tasting." The sighs among the other twenty international classmates are deafening as I see them out of the corner of my eye squirming in their chairs. I can't shut the debilitating mantra that keeps repeating in my mind: TURN BACK NOW AND RUN!

With a grimace, and a bit of pride, I always think back to spring of 2012 when I was preparing for intensive wine exams. After studying ten months in Paris, France at Le Cordon Bleu's first year of wine management, I still had my doubts about performing the 7-minute wine analysis and if given the choice would rather have performed the 7-minute AB workout even if it entailed wearing my spandex shorts.

I hold the glass of 2009 Chateau Kirwan Bordeaux in my hand like a singer ready to begin a melody. I am on stage but the theater is a dimly lit classroom in the 15th Arondissement of Paris and I am an American widow with three grown children wearing a uniform that matches the nine other youthful women classmates. Can I succeed at performing and following the international protocols of a perfect wine analysis amongst some of the highest-ranking wine judges in the world?

Although it is a compliment to be chosen for the 7-minute wine analysis in front of Monsieur Margaux there is also a large burden that incites thankless trepidation. That day the pressure was on to not only impress my professors and the man from Margaux but deliver the internationally accepted sensory wine analysis with grace, dignity and charm.

The internationally accepted rules of a wine tasting analysis chronicle in detail the visuel, or visual; olfactif or aromatic; and gustatif, or taste of a particular wine, analyzing the future of the wine in terms of age, serving temperature, whether to carafe or decant, and finally, what dish to pair with the wine--all in 7-minutes or less (the actual analysis to follow later!).