Why should you do the WSET Level 2 Award?

For this stage, you’ll be issued with a textbook and expected to study it from cover to cover. This is more involved than just showing up on the day and listening.

I took this course across three consecutive days. So that’s three full days where the course is condensed into an intensive time-frame.  You can choose to take them across a few weeks if you’d prefer, but this was a good insight into studying and revising while juggling a full time career and a family too – as most people taking the courses will be managing something else, I thought - let's give it a shot.

I'm certainly glad that I did.

Looking around the classroom and hearing from others attending, it was clear that the majority of other students already worked in the hospitality trade in some way, shape or form. For each, in their roles, it had become necessary for them to know more about wine and spirits.

Many pub managers and staff members had chosen to take the course together too, with some groups of two or three members going through the process of learning together. I have heard that there are many benefits to this kind of buddying up. Not just because it can aid revision by having another person to challenge you with questions or share the elements that they remember on the train or car journeys to and from classes – but also because most of those who did bonded as a team. They were all going through the same experience together. Not only did they each empathise with the highs and lows of committing information to memory, there was a level of respect and trust that built among colleagues. The 'I know what you know' dynamic was at play and also the understanding that taking the course on and learning it intensively was not an easy amount of knowledge to acquire in such a short space of time. Each of the teams also knew that now they would trust one another's judgement and opinion and talk much more about making the best drinks decisions for their venues.

So, what do you actually learn? If I bracket off each subject area of expertise covered, you’ll see how you cover a wide range of specialisms.

You’ll learn how to assess wine at a tasting (gustation and olfaction). You’ll learn how to take accurate notes based on how a wine has been created and matured. You’ll learn the importance of that slurpy  sound you hear when people taste wine (aeration). Aside from learning about global wine regions (geography), you’ll also learn the difference between how climate and weather (meteorology) affect the dirt on which it is grown (geology and pedology) to result in each different vintage (history). You’ll hear the word “terroir” referenced rather a lot and nod sagely, considering the aspects affecting growing conditions and flavour as well as suitable food styles to complement them (gastronomy). You’ll also learn about grape varieties and the various properties that make each differing type suitable for growing in certain specific regions with the ideal conditions (viticulture).

But ultimately, what you will realise is why ‘knowing about wine’ is often revered as complex and impenetrable. This is because wine is not one topic - it’s actually many many​ topics (including humanities and sciences and all of the things at school that involved committing facts and details to memory). And, once you’ve put all of that into your head, you'll realise that you can’t go back and unlearn it. There will be no room for anything else in your brain and you're likely to forget the ins and outs of your day-to-day life.

Learning about wine, you’ll glean a lot of new vernacular, mostly in connection to winemaking processes. You’ll learn about ‘malolactic fermentation’, about ‘sur lie’ and how it affects a resulting wine on your palate. You’ll suddenly have a dawning realisation as to why so many people in the wine world reference “mouth feel” without sniggering. You’ll understand a lot more than you did before and it will be brilliant to be burdened with so much knowledge. You’ll just want to let it out and talk about it all. We all need an outlet.

Part of learning about wine and understanding how learning anything​ new can impact on how we use all of this knowledge is possibly one of the reasons why the wine industry can sometimes appear as a bit snobby. It’s not that it is - more that it’s a normal human response to learn all sorts of lovely flowery terms and want to use them in discussions. To counter this, we need to remember that associations like the WSET help all of us in the trade to demystify wine for our own understanding, but how we choose​ to use this newly-acquired nous is up to us.

Can it help sell more and create a real buzz around the drink? Absolutely.