Apologies for not posting last week. I got caught up in the end of term admin, final lectures, and making sure my students were sorted before the break. As a result, I’m going to condense the last two weeks of the WSET Diploma into one post.The last two weeks were mostly about starting Unit 3, and specifically, France. We’ve covered Alsace, Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Southwest France. That included a lot of tasting – 22 wines in...
Read MoreThis was a fairly big week. We had our first exam, I got the results of my feedback tasting exam from some weeks before, marketing turned out to be fairly interesting, and some of us socialised.The main point of the day – I don’t want to call it a ‘highlight’ – was the Unit 2 (Wine Production) exam. It was 100 multiple choice questions to be done in 90 minutes. I feel confident that I passed, although perhaps I should take heed of...
Read MoreToday is a study day. Or something. I didn’t have to go to London this morning, which meant I could sleep in. Well, until 7 at any rate, which counts as sleeping in in my world. I’m presuming it is designed as a study day since our first Unit exam – Unit 2, Wine Production, is next week. (Exam! Ack!) Of course, along with studying, I have to go to a staff meeting, prep and give a lecture on anthropological research methods, and start...
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Beer. That was the key point of yesterday’s sessions. But I’ll come back to that in a bit.The morning was devoted to the first sessions on the wine and spirits market, both global and local. Important to know, but, to me at least, not particularly interesting. So I’ll pass over it in silence. The afternoon was the port tasting session. Here the most interesting bit was the element of age. In addition to the theory and background...
Read MoreWeek three. This was our first ‘feedback tasting test,’ a practice tasting exam. It wasn’t the only thing on the schedule, of course. The other parts of the day, walking through the various decisions involved in making different styles of wine – will destemming help here? Oak or not? – as well as a tasting workshop, where we wrote and swapped tasting notes were great. Both were incredibly useful in their respective ways. But here I’m...
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