I knew the syllabus quite well so this was not too surprising; however, I was surprised about the blind tasting part. After the exam most of the rest of the people on the course had a consensus about which wine it was, and I had put down something else. I was worried that I might have made the schoolboy error of tailoring my tasting notes to what I thought the wine was, but apparently not. Annoyingly we never found out what the wine was though.
Far more surprisingly, Adam and I were both invited to the Scholarship exam. This is where they invite the best 30 results in the country down to London for a viva on the Advanced course syllabus.
This was long enough after the exam that all the short-term memory knowledge had gone, So... back to the revision. The scholarships available are pretty tasty, but almost without exception are only available for people who work in the wine trade. Hmmm! Nonetheless, I still had fun on the day.
We've since found out the results. Adam and I both won the Decanter Magazing Prize along with one other person. Since this prize and the Vintners Bursary are the only ones we qualify for as dirty non-wine-trade people I was quite happy with this.
Structure of the viva:
The 30 students being examined were split into three groups, one hour apart. We went into a room where there were 10 tables with examiners behind them. We were randomly sat at tables (which one we sat at was decided purely by the order in which we walked into the room). A bell rang, the examiner turned over two cards each with a question on them and were had to choose one to answer. The bell then rang again after which we had five minutes to talk about our chosen question. Five minutes is not very long at all, particularly for some of the questions upon which it would be possible to write entire books (eg Differences between the wines of the North and South Rhone!). After this, we moved to the next table and started it all again.
1. Wine & Food or Spirits
Annoyingly, the question I got on Spirits was about the production of Islay Whisky, something I hadn't really revised. So I was stuck with a question on the pairing of food with wine.
2. Rhone or Germany
Both questions were very doable here. In the end I went for the question on the Rhone Valley. Almost impossible to answer in time.
3. New World vs Old World
Both questions were along the lines of "describe the following styles of wine". I went for the Old World question (SW France and Bordeaux), but either question was very doable.
4. Burgundy/Alsace or Sparkling
The B/A question was about different grape varieties in the regions. I went instead for the question on the methods of production of sparkling wine. I had a lot to say about this, but was rather unstructured in my rush to get it all in.
5. Italy or Spain
I went for a question of describing three wines from Piedmonte. Threw in a cheeky Moscato d'Asti as one of them since they didn't specify still wines.
6. Vinification vs Viticulture
This one was difficult. Both questions were hard. One was on vineyard pests. The other was on the various alterations which are possible for a winemaker to make to a wine both pre and post fermentation. I went for the second question but I think that I didn't do too well here.
7. Vinters Interview
This was probably the most annoying part of the whole viva process. This was to determine who gets the Vinters Bursary. Since this was the only winery visit prize which was open to people not in the wine trade this was an important stand to perform well at.
However, when the people from the vintners trust discovered that I was not in the wine trade and wasn't interested in transferring to the wine trade there was a noticeable drop in their interest levels. This was cemented when they discovered that I work for a bank(!) One of them made a snooty comment about bankers bonuses. Ho hum. I don't quite understand the rather snobbish attitude of the wine trade to people who work in financial services - who do they think is buying all this overpriced bordeaux and keeping their industry going? :o)
8. Tasting
By this stage I knew I had no chance of a Vintners Bursary so was beginning to just relax and enjoy myself. With fortuitous timing this coincided with the wine tasting round...
A blind tasting of two wines. Five minutes is not really long enough to get through all the points in the WSET tasting schema so I had to rush. One of the wines was clearly a very good pinot noir and I would have definitely pegged it as a Burgundy. However, we were told that both were from the same region and there was no way that the other wine was a Beaujolais. It had quite an intense flavour, noticeable tannin, was well balanced and tasted pleasant. So I pegged them both as being from the Loire - one a PN, one a Cab Franc.
Oh dear, I later discovered that they were both from Burgundy and that it was indeed a Beaujolais. My prejudice against Beaujolais worked against me.
9. Eastern Europe vs Something else (I forget)
Let this be a warning to those who try to question spot in this viva. Eastern Europe was indeed examined. Since I had gone to the trouble of learning it quite well I went for that question. Rather surprisingly, I think this may well have been one of my highest-scoring rounds. I had to rush to fit in everything I wanted to say about the 5 regions asked about. Helpfully, one of the regions was Tokaji and another was Santorini.
10. Fortified wines vs Something else (Can't remember)
My question was about different styles of Sherry. I think I acquitted myself well here too.
Advice to anyone else who gets to the viva stage:
- Be in the wine trade. If you are not, consider taking up a Saturday job at your local Majestic/Oddbins/etc. This is probably the single biggest thing you can do to improve your chances of winning.
- Don't try to question spot. Even the most unlikely areas come up. Eastern Europe, Vinification and Viticulture. etc etc
- If you are a pretty girl, flirt outrageously with the people at the Vintners Interview stand. The interviewers are all old men who have ultimate discretion on whether to give you a grand to go on holiday in a wine region(!)
No comments:
Post a Comment