My recent studies

My educational journey

I have referred to myself as a perpetual student of wine.  To better educate my clients and students, I need to be well informed and confident in my curriculum.  Classes, study groups, certifications are all to help me gain perspective, information, explore new regions, wines and approaches to wine.  It makes me a better instructor to have the accreditations; to feel rewarded for all the hard work, hours of study and probably the most grueling part (ha ha), bottles and bottles of wine that had to be assessed.

So recently, I decided to take on two certifications at the same time.  There was some overlap in material as one of the certifications was my FWS (French Wine Scholar) and the other was my WSET3 (Wine and Spirit Educational Trust Level 3) and that did include France (among the many, many other regions). However, the amount of information about France was so much more detailed in the FWS than the WSET3 and the WSET3 included so much more than theory.  Talk about information overload!  It was daunting.  Let me also put into perspective that I am no spring chicken so the absorption of information doesn’t come as easy as it did in my 20’s, 30’s or even 40’s. That aside, I love what I do and I thirst for the information (and the wine).  This verve really aided in the absorption of the information to some extent.

Let’s break down the FWS.  First of all, I don’t speak French.  I took a few classes about 40 years ago, but let’s be honest the best I can do is say cheese (fromage) and thank you (merci). So not knowing how to pronounce the varietals, regions, cities, etc. was difficult; however, I memorized the spelling of the words (thank goodness this is not an oral exam). Now, I’m no stranger to regional studies as I received my IWS (Italian Wine Scholar) certification in 2020, but for some reason the Italian verbiage was a little easier for me. The sheer amount of detail is incredible.  Not only do you learn about the history, the climates, and the varietals for each region, but then you need to know the regions, sub-regions, villages, some vineyards, Lieu-Dit, and so on. It is a beautiful, poetic, torturous amount of information.  This was made so much easier by a straight forward curriculum and amazing instructors who not only shared experiences, but shared their rare and delicious wines from each region we studied.  Everything is easier with wine. The course ran for about 16 weeks.

In the meantime, I enrolled for my WSET3.  This, too, included a lot of theory.  This means a lot of factual information about wine regions, but this time globally, not just one country.  The amount of details wasn’t as fine as in the FWS or IWS, but still…it was GLOBALLY.  Again, issues such language barriers of pronunciation and such. This course touched on some history, climate, definitely covered varietals, but went more into the details of how the specific grape varieties are impacted by the terroir and how cultivated can impact flavor profiles.  This segued into the other portion of the WSET which would be tasting.  Following the Systematic Approach to Tasting (SAT), you learn to assess the wine’s appearance, aromas, flavors, and quality. 

Now, I’m pretty confident when it comes to theory, but I have often questioned or even doubted myself when it comes to assessing a wine.  I know that I know my stuff, but sometimes you have insecurities.  I guess that’s what they call Imposter Syndrome.  You are qualified.  You are educated.  You are definitely experienced.  That’s what I tell myself when I hear those little voices asking “are you sure”?  As I tell my clients, you taste what you taste, you smell what you smell and you like what you like and my job is to help guide you through it—to help you identify what it is you are smelling or to help you verbalize what it is you are tasting.  Practice may not always create perfection, but it definitely builds confidence.  During my in-person portion of my WSET studies, we tasted 75+ wines and assessed them together.  This helps to calibrate your taste buds among your classmates and instructors, but it also helps to identify those flavors and aromas and most of all it helps to build confidence.  Knowing I passed the tasting portion of my WSET exam validated my hard work and helped forged my confidence. That confidence in my abilities will help propel me to the next level.  That confidence will help me to educate my students and build up their confidence to become more secure in their wine journeys.