As I have said previously I work in the wine trade and for my sins I have to take a WSET qualification. As exams are not my thing I feel that this is not going to have a happy ending! Not only do you need to be able to drink wine and distinguish flavours and aromas but you have to learn about soils, grape varieties, regions and sparkling wine methods.
Now the drinking and tasting part of the exam is going to be the best part, for obvious reasons. Though Brandy and Whiskey before lunch is never really that good, not even for an alcoholic is training. However I was able to go back to my old Majestic Wine store and do some blind tastings in preparation for the exam last night. I have only done a few blind tastings before and find that trying to distinguish white wine aromas and flavours is a lot harder than red. However I managed to surprise myself and did quite well, even if I got the actual wine a bit wrong - South African Chenin and French Chardonnay probably shouldn’t be muddled up but I was under pressure! The wine in question turned out to be Domaine Begude Chardonnay, a wine that I have actually purchased in the past from Majestic. But this was still the easy part!
The written exam is something that I am not looking forward to and flash backs of University final exams are coming back to haunt me. At the moment I am stuck between learning and getting someone else to dress up like me! So far two male managers have turned me down on that front but I am still on the look out! I am about to crack open the books and start learning about regions, oh how I wish I had some geography knowledge and that the whole exam was just drinking the stuff!!!