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| Ready, set, go! |
Fascinating
aromas - tough work
Studying
for WSET3 at Milan Wine Academy (or Accademia Vino) was a genuine metaphor of
the wine world: our study group spent the days tasting flights of wonderful
wines - only to get buried in wine literature during the evenings. This intense
week of tasting and studying in Milan brought together us, who had studied for
months preparing for it. All this work culminated in examination on the final
day, both in tasting and theory. Many of you, dear readers, might now sigh
enviously picturing me in Milan. Don’t worry, though. Admittedly, I had fun,
but the fun doesn’t begin to compare with the performance pressure. Let’s see.
1. Blind tasting exam - panic. 2. Theory exam – panic. 3. Very short time allocated
for the theory exam - panic! 4. The difficulty of the questions in the theory
exam - panic, indeed!! 5. Added bonus panic: all my fellow course mates were
either winemakers or sommeliers by profession. Is short, I panicked.
Don’t get
me wrong! Milan was exciting, beautiful, delicious and surprisingly laid back
for a financial capital. I spent plenty of time in awe in front of Dolce&Gabbana store – but only after the final exam. Before the exam the only
sightseeing I enjoyed was from my hotel room balcony while I spent my evenings
studying, studying and studying.
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| My only sightseeing until the exam. |
Luckily all
the study pressure wasn’t in vain, as indicated earlier in December by the winebloggers’ blind tasting challenge, where I managed to pick up the Syrah/Shiraz
from Chile. So, fortunately some information stuck to my cortex, which was
entirely thanks to the outstanding faculty of Accademia Vino. First, AlessandraFedi. Her bubbly personality and interactive lecturing style ensured that her
themes, including her area of special expertise, Chilean wine, were
unforgettable to us. Second, Marina Olwen Fogarty. Being half British, half
Italian, she offered us the best of both worlds teaching-wise: there aren’t
many that are able to combine winemaker’s understanding to an extremely clearly
articulated academic style of communication. And finally, Flavio. Flavio Grassi
is the director of the Milan Wine Academy, a true Milanese gentleman who has
spent a great part of his life in Anglo-Saxon culture environment.
Entertaining, sharp and clear, Flavio teaches difficult wine concepts with the
kind of relaxed ease and clarity that I’ve never come across before, in wine
studies or any other studies for that matter.
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| WSET3 student rinses and dries tasting glasses again and again. |
During the
WSET3 training we tasted roughly 100 wines and studied for hundreds of hours. The
course covered the essential wine regions of the world, and in addition, some
less known, upcoming wine producing countries such as Uruguay and Canada. Understanding
wine regions was only one part of the advanced curriculum of WSET3, which also
looked at all core aspects of wine production and evaluation including
winemaking, grape varieties, natural hazards, vineyard management, the
determinates of wine quality and style, wine aromas, and – most crucially, the
systematic approach of tasting wine. This technique enables the taster to
evaluate a wine in terms of quality, identity, aging potential and price point
by gathering systematic information of the particular wine through sensing its appearance,
nose, palate and finish. This approach to wine tasting was what particularly
attracted me to undertaking WSET3.
Now, when the results of the exams have come
in, I guess it is safe to say that I’m quite pleased with the skillset I manage
to acquire. In spite of all that panicking I was able to pass both the tasting
and theory exams with distinction. Phew! Now I can breathe again. These news
require breathing in some champagne aromas… Cin cin, dear wine lovers, and
Happy New Year to you all!
