What about the WSET

Recently, someone asked me for some advice about taking some courses for WSET and I found myself disarmed. To be honest, I never paid attention to it before migrating to Amsterdam. With My formal education in biology, history, history, art, and finally enology, I didn’t feel the need to have a specific curriculum for wine.

I’m France, where I come from, you can have a primary or professional education in wine at all levels, from vocational schools to universities. The government can even finance your training and in some conditions, you can even be paid for your training in wines. As an adult, the government can finance your training in professional wine education (it includes WSET training).

In such an environment, the need for an international course with several levels from an English organization (French can be chauvinist, especially with things coming from the other side of the Channel) is low. I never heard about it when I was in France (or I never paid attention), only when I started to live abroad. But first, what is the WSET?

WSET stands for Wine & Spirit Education Trust. This organization was founded in 1969 by several English professional organizations from the wine and spirit industries. The main goal of the organization was to provide training for wine professionals. Training is essential for any professional field, and the wine industry is not an exception, making sure that every professional has the necessary knowledge to buy and sell wine is important.

There are four levels, from one to four. Each level builds upon the previous one. The first level is an initiation into wine, wine style, grape characteristics, and food pairing. The second level covers more in-depth knowledge about grapes, winemaking, wine regions, and wine styles. The third level expands the understanding of wine production, viticulture, and wine regions. The last level reinforces the understanding of how and why wine production and business factors influence the style, quality, and price of wines. Most levels include tasting and how to describe wine.

And what about natural wine in the WSET learning? When I watch the content of some WSET trainers, I am always amused by the poor knowledge of the natural wine they show. It is not that they don’t know natural wine at all, they drink some of them, you can see some content on Jean Francois Gavenat or other famous natural winemakers. They lack an understanding of the natural wine movement and the low-intervention wine. Natural wine is not a specific focus in WSET courses. If your focus is natural wine these courses are not for you. The general approach of learning wine in WSET courses is interesting, it gives a good knowledge of cultivars, terroir, climate, and regional characteristics in winemaking. But some things are missing in the WSET. The degustation process you learn during courses is very analytical. The process focuses on the decomposition of wine aroma based on a limited set of wines, the color, the mouth sensation, and finally the balance, the relation between acidity, alcohol, and tannins. This leaves no or little room for terroir, the winemaker, or the vintages. It forgets other sensations and mostly the emotional aspect of the wine. Because you cannot reduce wine to a basket of fruits.

Another aspect of the WSET is the limitation of the grapes and wines region. The training format does not allow us to have an exhaustive view of all the grapes and wine regions of the world. I often view content about a wine region where the presenter says that he or she will only talk about what is on the WSET program and omit the rest.

As you can see WSET can limit your wine knowledge and can tend to some kind of standardization. In our time where things move relatively fast, when new wine regions and new terroir emerge does the WSET course matter?

It depends on your situation, if you want to work in the wine industry, especially outside of France, Italy, Spain, or Portugal, it is valuable. It may be the only formal education in wine you can find, and it can be a big plus on your resume.

And if you reside in France, Italy, Spain, or Portugal, you should look for professional or formal education in wine. Multiple courses exist for all levels from vocational school to university, and they are generally less expensive or cost-free. Diplomas have local or international recognition.

If your goal is just to have a general wine knowledge, WSET may not be for you. You can take some courses but there are more sustainable financial options. There are a few free, university-level courses you can find online. The first course is from UC Davis: Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis. This course is a good introduction to wine tasting and is available at www.edx.org. The second course is from the University of Adelaide (World of Wine: From Grape to Glass) and covers the wine-growing and winemaking process.

Formal training, whether it is WSET, academic, or online, is not enough. To understand wine, you need more than education.

You need to taste and taste again, not only to get a grade but to develop your nose and your palate. And you should taste not only the region you learned in courses you take but also other regions and other styles. While tasting a wine is always good to understand the region where it comes from. For this, you can use a wine atlas (I use The World Atlas of Wine from Jancis Robinson). It will give you an overview of the geology, climate, grape, and history of the region.

I like to use a world wine guide, like “Wine Folly” by Madeline Puckette, but you can choose any other books like “the concise guide to wine” by Neel Burton.

This is just an introduction, if you want to go further, you may need to read “The New French Wine, Redefining the world’s greatest wine culture” and read books from Jamie Goode, he has a PhD in biology and is the author of Wine Science, Authentic Wine, I Taste Red and Flawless. You can check his website here.

Learning wine is an endless journey, you should appreciate each step, but you should never stop learning. The last thing you should do is exchange with other people about your passion for wine. Note: I don’t have any affiliation with Edx or any other training institution.