First Morning – Paperwork and Lexicon at the ready
Have just spent the last 6 days of my life totally absorbed in Wine education to the extent I have been having Grape nightmares and waking up at 3am with the Wine Shakes !
To explain – all students on the Leiths 9 month Cooking Diploma were obliged to study Wine and Spirits WSET Level 2, which in itself stressed out a lot of people. We were generally having a wine lecture and tasting once a week and therefore the Course was spread over a period of 6 months or so. Many of us found this difficult as by the time the Exam came along it was challenging to recall lectures from months and months earlier. This resulted in most of us cramming the revision like mad on the week before the Exam. This style of cramming worked for me and fortunately I managed a pass with Distinction. The exam itself involved 50 multi choice questions each with 4 possible answers whereupon 2 could usually be discounted pretty easily. Therefore whilst it was not straightforward, with the correct study and understanding it was an exam that was passable without too much stress.
When I mentioned to one of the Leiths teachers I was interested in Level 3, I was advised it would be wise to undertake the Exam as quickly as possible – basically whilst everything I had learnt to date was still fresh in my “Homer” style brain, IE I need to move some stuff out of my brain before I can make room to absorb and memorise any new facts !
Never enough room in the brain !
With this in mind I established that not only are the WSET Wine courses ran pretty frequently (so many Winos about !), but that they also run 5 day intensive courses with the appropriate Exam the 6th and following morning. In a moment of weakness, and realising their HQ where the courses took place was in Bermondsey Street ( only 10 minutes walk away from me), I signed up for a course starting Mid August. This was back in the first week of July. My payment and registration was quickly followed up with the Course materials – a 200 page book, a study/ workbook, Specifications and the WSET Wine Lexicon for tasting Wine. You are also sent access to an online classroom that contains all the PowerPoint presentations that we would be seeing during the Course, and a number of videos recommended to watch before the Course would commence.
The study guide explains the Exam is a significant undertaking and recommends that you allocate a minimum of 54 hours of home study, and that if you are undertaking the Intensive Course this should all be done before the Course commences – S**t ! That shocked me, and already the countdown to the first day was ticking away !
Anyway during the 5 weeks before the Course I read the book from cover to cover and watched a selection of the videos. It was difficult to get the balance between my real job , my social and family life, and this study, but I did what I could – of course never enough. I had also been recommended to read Micheal Schusters fantastic book “Essential Winetasting” and whilst I would highly recommend it, I only managed to get page 40 out of 224 before undertaking the class – BIG MISTAKE ! The book is superbly written and I will continue studying it even though I have finished the course. It really is a great companion to the course, and I would have benefitted if I could have finished it before the Course started. Drat and double drat !
Monday 13th August me and 27 other students sat down in the Vintners Room at WSET HQ and nervously sat looking at our books waiting for the first lecture. I had the feeling that most, if not all, were thinking “ why am I here, what have I done !” and after the second day this was very much the mantra encircling all students all of whom had looks of bewilderment and disbelief that we had already tasted 28 wines. Indeed we were told early on that we would be tasting 82 wines over the next 5 days and then 2 more for the blind tasting exam on Saturday. 10 wines on the first day, 18 each subsequent day – so they were easing us in on the first day !
A selection of some of the 84 wines to taste !
The first morning was really all about the process of tasting wine and what WSET were looking for when we were to describe a wine that we were sampling. It all follows their Systematic Approach to Tasting Wine, covering :
– Appearance
– Nose
– Palate
– Description of Aroma and Flavours, which involves Clusters of potential descriptors sorted into Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Aromas and Flavours.
– Conclusions
This would become our “Bible” for the rest of week and our bedrock for describing the wines at every session. All of our tasting on the first day was blind to get us used to understanding the completely different characteristics of each wine and to help us feel more comfortable to convert what were smelling and tasting to the written word. This was extremely challenging for me as my palate and nose are not very sensitive and I was struggling on most of the tastings to determine the nose and the flavours that both the Teacher and other students were picking up. Forest Floor anyone ? Tar and Leather ? I had thought initially it was a matter of training your senses but I now believe it is a physical “disability” on my part! If your receptors are not up to the task then it does not matter how many times you taste/smell you will not find what they are talking about. I even thought I had made a huge mistake in signing up but now I had to soldier on !
We were tasting many different styles and levels of quality involving wines that retailed from as little as £6.49 – a simple Muscadet from the Loire, to an £80 bottle of 1985 Vintage Port, which looking back through my notes simply had a comment of “WOW!” with a smiley face ! Having said this the majority of wines we were lucky enough to taste were Premier examples of the types we were studying, and sampling the range over such a short period had the advantage of comparing the styles with each other in a way you would not usually have the opportunity to IE 6 wines on your table per session. The disadvantage is that you were maybe sampling heavy Red Wines at 09.30AM, and that after 3 or 4 days all were merging into one and you could not recollect what you had been drinking the previous day – or even the previous session. Of course we were advised to judiciously use our Spittoon as drinking 18 fairly large glasses a day would probably hospitalise us. Apparently they have had an experience with one over zealous taster who had to be rejected from class for being too loud and disturbing his fellow students !
OK – just one more then !i
Another sage piece of advice was to keep to the official WSET lexicon of descriptors and not to veer into your own fantasy world by describing aromas of “ Mechanics Trousers” or “ Like my Grandmas bedroom” which had both been utilised by students in Exams previously !
What about the Teachers and other Students in the Course ? The Teachers were all of an excellent quality and really did know their stuff. I have huge respect for their knowledge and the way they were doing their best to impart this to us. They may have all had their own style but I can honestly say each and every one were impressive, patient and eager to pass on their passion and knowledge. As to the other Students then many of them were somehow involved in the Wine Industry already. I met Sommeliers, Vineyard workers, Wine retailers,Hospitality Personnel and Restauranteurs. A few were doing the course as a potential Career change and a few more for pleasure and curiosity – like me. Generally I felt out of my depth at times as the questions from Students were demonstrating an enviable existing breadth of knowledge, however I continued undaunted and must say I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learnt more than I could have imagined.
We did a Blind Tasting mock exam on Thursday AM and I failed – again confirming my fear of my receptors not being up to what they should be. I could not even tell a white wine had been heavily Oaked and I got the red wine completely wrong , which was a cheap example of a Cote Du Rhône. The red comment on my feedback was “ misunderstood the structure of the wine” – I think this was a kind way of saying I was an idiot ! Only 46% scores – need 55% – not a good omen !
As regards the Exam itself then I undertook this at 09.30 am Saturday. It involves a half hour tasting of a red and a white wine. 50 multiple choice questions and a dozen or so questions covering all learning outcomes that required freestyle answers – 2 hours to complete this part of the exam.
The results unfortunately are not advised for 10 weeks so I will not go into detail here about my thoughts other than :
– Blind Tasting – I think ( fingers crossed) I understood the 2 wines a lot better. Hopefully a fruity White with no secondary or oaking, and a more complex red which had potential aging.
– Multi Choice – A breeze as I studied well. Would hope to gain a Distinction if it were stand alone.
– Freestyle Questions – really difficult, obscure Austrian wines, inexpensive SAfrican reds and Fortified Muscat’s that really screwed me up. Very few points from anything I had really focused on IE France, Germany, Spain,Portugal, and no opportunity to utilise my knowledge of Carbonic Maceration, Passito and general Viticulture !
Unfortunately you need a minimum of 55% on each section so even a high score on the Multiple Choice will not assist a 50% score on the Essay style questions. At least you can resit them !
My heavenly Wine !
Let you know the result in 10 weeks time. In the meantime my favourite Wine from the 84 ? An Allegrini Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico 2013 retailing at £49.99 – if I could only drink one wine for the rest of my life this would be the one !