Here's one definition of hell: the mother of all hangovers is gnawing at my brain as I sit before 12 untouched glasses of wine. At 10.30am.

Then, for an hour before I can test the hair-of-the-dog theory, I’m bombarded with facts about the Australian wine industry: how vines were introduced to the country in 1788, how, in the 1930s, the UK imported more wine from Down Under than from France, and how there is much more to Australian wine than shiraz and chardonnay. Interesting stuff, but I can’t take it in. Palates might be sharper at that time of the morning, but my head certainly isn’t.

It’s my own fault. My sister, Susie, and I had arrived the previous evening for a weekend course on Australian wines and because the delicious meal had spread over more than a few hours, I’d downed copious amounts of the very good red and white liquid on offer. We were, after all, at the Ecole du Vin, which isn’t in a leafy vineyard in Bordeaux as its name might suggest, but in that other great wine centre also beginning with B – Birmingham.

Birmingham? A strange place to hold a wine school, even if it is at the Hotel du Vin, known for its extensive wine lists. Yes, admits the charismatic master sommelier, Henri Chapon, who oversees the course and the purchase of wine for the hotel group, but it’s a good way for a business hotel to fill its rooms at weekends.

What we sample, though, is far from your average room filler. The Ecole du Vin is not just a classroom session with lots of sucking wine noisily over the palate. Which is lucky, because by glass seven of the 12, I’m not impressed: I haven’t tasted anything I’d rave about, and on our eighth glass, a cheeky little merlot from Margaret River at £30, my sister whispers to me: “It's no better than anything I get from Tesco.”

The Ecole du Vin is about extending that tutoring through two gastronomic evenings, which progress from predinner drinks through a range of wines to accompany an excellent three-course meal. Which is infinitely more interesting than the classroom – it shows you better than any amount of lecturing that what you eat determines what wine to order.

This really hits home on the first evening, when pan-fried duck is accompanied by two reds. The plummy zinfandel, which to my untutored palate is akin to a rioja, tastes a million times better than the lighter sangiovese from South Australia. But as we eat, I notice that the level of sangiovese in my glass is slipping down much faster than the zinfandel.

“That’s natural, because the zinfandel is so strong it fights with the food,” Chapon tells me. “If we brought out a claret now everybody would prefer that because French wine is made to go with food. That is changing in Australia now.”

He is an excellent teacher, translating any pretentious talk of peppery bouquets with truffle undertones into much more accessible information, doled out with the food throughout the evening. “One wine always reminds me of the smell of a gas leak,” he confides. “The right word for it is geranium, but I always think of a gas leak first when I smell a pinot noir.”

Beverage manager and master sommelier Dimitri Mesnard also contributes to the banter. “The beauty about wine is that no one knows everything about it, so it is an exchange. It’s all about emotion and feeling,” he says. We do chat a lot about the wine as we sit, 20 of us, around the table.

By the second night, everyone is more confident in their judgment as we compare a £70 shiraz with a £100 one. I can’t think of a better way to grasp the French concept of terroir: that the land, as well as the grape, is important.

Considering the amount of fine wine we get through, the course is great value. The weekend is about the same price as if you stayed in the hotel for two nights on half board. And had we, like some of the guests, hung around after the Saturday tasting to polish off the best bottles, it would have been even better value. But, then, sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Need to know

The Ecole du Vin in Birmingham costs £575 for two, including breakfast, two tutored dinners with wine (on the Friday and Saturday evenings) and a classroom tasting session on the Saturday morning.

Courses are throughout the year and include French country wines (January 25-27) and Henri and Dimitri’s favourites (February 22-24). More dates will be announced next year.

Further details: 0121-200 0600, www.hotelduvin.co.uk

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