Rewarding Day Achieving an Award In Wine
It’s probable most people this will be interested in a drop of wine - indeed, there’ll be those who will know a great deal about the world of viniculture. There might even be one or two dedicated oenologists or Masters of Wine reading this article. But it’s also probable that the vast majority will be like me - i.e. you vaguely know what kind of reds, whites or rosé wines you like, but that is about as far as your knowledge goes…
Your interest may have been sparked by a wine you enjoyed while out with friends in a restaurant or away on holiday - you may even have enjoyed a few vineyard tours or wine-tastings - but somehow any detailed knowledge gleaned on such occasions has been swept away by the general gaiety which wine, of course, is so capable of producing.
If that is the case then allow me to tell you about a life-changing experience which I delighted in recently. I say ‘life-changing’ because, from now on, every time I lift a glass of wine to my lips (which is quite often) I will be doing so with a great deal more forethought, knowledge and attention than was previously the case.
That is because I was invited to attend a one-day wine-course, otherwise known as the Wine & Spirit Education Trust’s (WSET) Level 1 Award in Wines. The study booklet accompanying the course is entitled An Introduction to Wine - and what’s on the side of the tin is exactly what you get. The basics…
I could put it another way… When I returned home after the course I was able to demonstrate to friends who’d come around for dinner that I really had quadrupled my knowledge of wine since waking up that morning. Indeed, it was amazing how many lazy mis-truths and wrong notions I’d gathered down the years - and thanks to the South West Wine School and its WSET course (staged at Topsham’s Darts Farm), I had been able to iron a great many of these out of the system.
I had not become an instant wine-nerd, but I had been given a surprising and satisfying swathe of knowledge which had given me foundations upon which I could build a whole structure of wine-understanding if I choose to do so. And the experience of re-assessing and making sense of the random knowledge I’d previously held was fascinating and intriguing.
If I had to find an analogy, I might point to a person with a life-long love of rugby. There must be many people who played competitively when they were young and who still love to watch the game - and we like to think we know all there is to know. But do we? We might know the rules and basic styles of play - but do we really know why certain tactics work in certain situations or why one form of attacking manoeuvre can overcome a particular blend of defence? If you ever go to a match and listen to the verbose comments of self-confessed “experts” in the crowd, you’ll might realise that nine out of ten home-schooled rugby professors haven’t a clue.
Goodness knows how far you could take that analogy if you attended WSET’s Level 2 or 3 Awards or undertook their all embracing Wine Level 4 Diploma in Wines - I imagine if you were comparing it to the world of rugby, the latter would give you the ability to become a fully-fledged club manager.
Obviously I am still carrying my wine L-plates - all I’m saying is that even the basic WSET 1 Award will sort out and clarify the foundations of your knowledge.
One of the South West Wine School's educators who has sailed through the whole gamut of awards is Rebecca Mitchell (DipWSET), a consultant sommelier and wine expert who led my one-day course at Darts Farm with great enthusiasm, passion and aplomb. Another is my RAW Food and Drink PR colleague, Hayley Reynolds (also DipWSET), who runs the wine school with her husband Jonathan, who has his Level 3. Hayley has flown very high indeed in the international food and drinks world and so has seen how important a sound knowledge in wine can be - which is presumably why she and Jonathan set up the region’s premier wine school. It is Jonathan who now oversees South West Wine School whilst Hayley focuses on the PR side of things.
“So many people like to enjoy a regular glass of wine - but how many of them really have much of a clue when it comes to the liquid in their glass?” Jonathan comments. “Wine is not the cheapest of consumer products, yet the bar is set pretty low when it comes to the knowledge requirements of consumers.
“The basic question is: ‘Red, white, or maybe rosé?’ Which is fine as far as it goes. But a person buying a car would not choose a model based simply on: ‘Petrol, diesel or maybe electric?’ They’d want to know a lot more about what type of, say, petrol car it was.
“The WSET courses we run are designed to give you the wherewithal to start asking authentic questions and making genuine choices. At the most basic, that means you will start getting more bang for your buck each time you buy a glass or a bottle of wine. You will not only know more about what you like, you will know why you like it… Because you’ll begin to learn about how your favoured wine is made - why, for example, certain techniques or processes result in more or less dryness, or sweetness, or tannin.
“It goes on from there as you step up the WSET ladder,” says Jonathan. “Of course, you don’t have to take it any further than Level 1 - we get a great many people whose loved ones buy them a voucher for a course as a present, simply because they have a basic love of wine and they just want to know a bit more. That person can go home after Level 1 very satisfied having taken a short exam which has gained them a certificate they can show their friends and family.
“Others will have a reason to go deeper into the story of wine. Perhaps they’ve been given a job at a wine bar or are helping to run a restaurant. And we have a great many corporate customers whose managers, for example, will be expected to host lunches or dinners with clients. Having the right wines on the table can make a big difference to the enjoyment of any meal and that can be important when you’re out to impress a client.
“But for me it’s all about getting more out of this one enjoyment which so many of us love. There is so much to learn about this most fascinating of industries. Wine is one of the great joys in life for so many people - you only have to look at the massive wine-aisles in supermarkets to know that. And learning just a little bit more about the fermented grape juice in all those multitudinous bottles can make a big difference to your levels of enjoyment.”
The dozen people on the South West Wine School WSET course I attended would certainly agree. There were people of all ages from all walks of life - from a retired couple who simply wanted to extend their basic knowledge so that they could feel more confident in ordering wine in a restaurant, to a young woman who’d taken over the running of a Devon pub. She knew all about pulling pints, but very little when it came to the inn’s wine list. It is probable that she’ll attend the higher level WSET courses, whereas the retired couple were quite content to go home absorbing one-day’s worth of facts and figures.
As for the food journalist with the L-plates… That remains to be seen. The WSET Level 1 course ends with a short 45-minute exam, which I enjoyed despite initial nerves - but I will have to wait another couple of weeks before I get the results, so can’t show you a selfie with that hoped-for certificate just yet. In the meantime, I’ll raise a glass of Chablis to the South West Wine School, where I learned that my favourite white wine is actually made of chardonnay grapes - a fact that had somehow escaped my knowledge despite 40 years of drinking the stuff.
You get to learn some fascinating facts on a South West Wine School course - like these….
There are 10,000 varieties of wine grapes existing worldwide.
You need to drink 7 glasses of orange juice or 20 glasses of apple juice in order to get the same amount of antioxidants in wine.
There is a right and wrong way to hold a wine glass. The proper way is to hold by the stem so that the hand does not warm the glass and increase the temperature of the wine.
The largest bottle of wine is the "Nebuchadnezzar." It equates to 20 regular-sized bottles or around 15 litres.
To quench a thirst, people drank wine instead of water centuries ago. In those days water was often far from clean, and natural fermentation during the wine-making process could kill germs caused by typhi (salmonella) and cholera.
And for those like me who thought Chablis was only made from some special grape grown in that French region, it is in fact made from chardonnay.
Forthcoming courses at the South West Wine School, staged at Darts Farm, Topsham - see https://www.southwestwineschool.co.uk/
WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Fridays 27th January / 3rd February / 10th February
WSET Level 1 Award in Wines: Friday 3rd March
WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Fridays 21st April / 28th April / 5th May
WSET Level 1 Award in Wines: Friday 12th May
WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Fridays 23rd June / 30th June / 7th July
WSET Level 1 Award in Wines: Friday 14th July
WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Fridays 22nd Sept / 29th Sept / 6th Oct
WSET Level 1 Award in Wines: Friday 13th Oct
WSET Level 2 Award in Wines: Fridays 3rd Nov / 10th Nov / 17th Nov
South West Wine School works with the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, founded in 1969 to serve the growing educational needs of the UK’s wine and spirits industry. In 2001 the charitable concern became an accredited Awarding Body with qualifications becoming recognised by the UK government.
The concept has grown internationally and now WSET qualifications are available in over 70 countries in 15 languages, through a network of more than 900 course providers. Students outside the UK represent over 75% of WSET candidates.
WSET qualifications are globally recognised as the international standard in wine and spirit knowledge. They are designed for those who are just starting out in their careers, as well as established professionals, and the many enthusiasts who have a passion for wines and spirits.
