Part II of The Long Road to the Master of Wine focuses on the study plan leading up to application. Part I can be found here, which focuses on the financial plan for the course.
So, the second half of preparing for the MW course is, of course, a study plan of some sort. I’ve spent the last month figuring out a plan of action, talking to Masters of Wine, current Master of Wine students and a variety of people who attempted the course at some point over the last 15 years, and on that note I’d like to offer some thanks before I go onto the plan itself. Shortly after releasing Part I of this series, I received unsolicited messages of support, advice and encouragement from every corner, and I have to say, thank you all very, very much. A great deal of that correspondence has gone into the creation of this plan and if I have even a fraction of that support as I go through the course, I’ll have no-one to blame it on but myself if I don’t succeed.
A big advantage of planning this so far ahead is that I essentially have a full year to prepare myself before the course begins, not only from a financial point of view but in terms of knowledge and tasting ability. From what I gather, there’s no fool-proof way to begin the Master of Wine course, but thorough preparation rarely hurts. I remember from doing my WSET Diploma that by studying ahead and being prepared for every class meant that I could really concentrate on the gaps in my knowledge, ask pertinent questions and get the most out of the limited time I had with the teachers. With the Master of Wine course being so much more driven by self-study with very limited structured teaching, this becomes more important than ever before. So, this plan is really a year long attempt to ‘read ahead’, bring myself back up to speed, fill in important gaps and build ahead of what promises to be a very intensive course.
It’s hard to know where to begin with something as large as this. The scope of the course is so large and the knowledge required to pass so deep, that it can be daunting even planning your approach. To quote Richard Hemming MW in his own Diary of an MW student, the syllabus can be summarised as ‘wine: everything about everything’. Fortunately, the Year 2 exams are split into two equal halves; Theory and Practical. Quite convenient for anyone looking to plan for it, don’t you think?
Theory
The theory side of the Master of Wine is tested at the end of Year 2 with 5 different papers, each lasting 3 hours each and covering the following topics:
Viticulture
Vinification and Pre-bottling
Handling of Wine
Business of Wine
Contemporary Issues
Or, as Richard said; ‘everything about everything.’ Now, these exams are three years down the line which may seem like a very long time away, but I suspect it will pass very quickly. There’s no point worrying too much about exam technique right now, but it will pay dividends to start gathering information early on. With that in mind, my plan is to focus on the basics and bring them all up to a very high level, whilst quietly tweaking my way of thinking to be more in line with the MW style. So, the next 12 months should look something like this, from a theory point of view:
Theory Study Plan
Study Duration: On average, 2 hours a day. This sounds like a lot, but it’s the amount I was putting into the WSET Diploma and includes magazines/blogs/online articles. I already spend around this much reading about wine on a daily basis, it’s just a case of focusing it slightly.
Note Taking: Thanks to the aforementioned generosity of those who got in touch with me after my previous post, I now have a solid note-taking spread-sheet with 100 different topics to cover, all of which fall under the 5 topics mentioned above. Whilst a lot of the next year will be spent reading, a big part of passing any sort of examination is extracting valuable information and the MW demands factual evidence to support arguments. Therefore, as I spend the year reading, researching and talking to producers and distributors etc, I shall be taking my own detailed notes and examples and saving them for the course itself.
Reading Schedule
August and September – WSET Diploma Revision. This is essentially 2 months to bring myself back up to speed. It’s easy to forget many of the details once you’ve stopped studying, so 120 hours to recap my notes and cover the more generic textbooks again is a good starting point.
October to December – Wine Science. This covers both viticulture and vinification, with an intention to move beyond the WSET syllabus and both broaden and deepen my knowledge. I put a lot of effort into this for the WSET Diploma and it paid enormous dividends; if you understand the building blocks of the industry, everything else falls into place a lot more easily later on. There’s a huge amount to cover here, but I’ll be focusing on the following books as a foundation for my 180 hours of potential study:
Viticulture by Stephen Skelton MW
Understanding Wine Technology by David Bird MW
Wine Science by Jamie Goode
The Handbook of Enology Volumes I and II by Pascal Ribereau-Gayon
There’s a lot more here related to vinification than viticulture, as there doesn’t appear to be too many definitive books related to this. Bear in mind this is purely to build on what I already know and understand, not to bring myself up to a level to pass the related papers.
January to March – Business of Wine. As I’ve not worked in the wine industry as such, this is certainly my biggest weak-point and why I’m dedicating a full 3 months to reading my heart out, networking with those who can give me some insight and taking lots of notes. There’s only two books I could find that seemed worth acquiring, so a lot of this is likely to be spent asking lots of questions to those directly in the trade and searching for related online material.
Wine: A Global Business by Liz Thach and Tim Matz
Wine Business Case Studies by Pierre Mora (Editor)
April – Recap. Assuming they’re not sick of me by this point, I should be spending a good few days in London judging at the International Wine Challenge. Whilst I’ll have already been in November, this gives me a chance to see where I’m up to with my notes and get some needed advice on where I can direct my efforts over the final few months before applying. Perhaps also a chance to unwind a bit, drink a few wines without breaking them down and recharge the batteries.
June to July – Currently undefined. As mentioned above, this very much depends on how I’ve gotten on over the previous months with my preparation. Ideally after getting some feedback in April, I’ll have a good idea of where I’m up to.
Other Study Tools
So, the above is mainly reading, researching and taking notes where-ever I can, whether it be a first-hand example from talking to a producer, or something I read in an article. The more information I can gather the better, as I can always narrow this down later. However, it’s not the only options I have available to me.
Wine Tutor TV – This is a wonderful online resource from Tim Wildman MW, making short videos to walk potential MW students through the different aspects of the exam, as well as how to prepare for it. I love watching these in short bursts, partly as a way to learn more but mainly to get myself into the mind-set of the exams themselves. It’s a valuable insight into how to think to pass these exams, which in turn teaches you how to think about taking notes, studying and preparing yourself mentally.
Podcasts – I’m not a huge Podcast fan, but as part of my weekly work-outs I spend a good 3 hours on a treadmill in total, which is about as boring as it sounds. I quite like to load up a “I’ll Drink to That‘ podcast by Levi Dalton and absorb it via osmosis during the most boring of workouts. As these are interviews with different elements of the wine trade from around the world, although mainly within the US, there’s important pieces of information to be gleaned from them. Also, they’re often quite fun.
Magazines – I subscribe to both The Drinks Business and The World of Fine Wine. Perhaps not the sort of first-hand evidence you can reference in an exam, but very good for keeping abreast of some of the major movements in the wine industry. Better yet, they can be read on the beach on those rare days off. Bliss.
Practical
The Practical element of the Master of Wine examination is notoriously difficult, with barely a 10% pass rate, yet despite this I’m not as worried as I perhaps should be. I just prefer blind tasting to writing essays so I’m likely to enjoy both the preparation and the event itself more than the Theory half of the exams. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m taking it lightly, and from September onwards, it’s definitely time to get back to being a little more consistent with my blind tasting, as well as improving my tasting vocabulary, drinking as broadly as possible and focusing on explaining my conclusions with supporting arguments.
Practical Study Plan
Study Duration: This is a little bit harder to define, as tastings tend to come as parts of events or set periods of time rather than a constant, daily grind. That said, there will be a fair bit of tasting done at home as well, so I suspect I could see this as roughly 30 minutes to 1 hour a day.
Practical Study Tools
Blind Tasting: Needless to say, I need to spend at least as much time practicing blind tasting as I did for the WSET Diploma. Fortunately, with Monvinic a 20 minute walk away, I can do this weekly without decimating my budget. A 6 wine flight of wines from around the world usually sets me back around €30. I should aim to be doing this at least weekly, adjusting my technique as I learn more about tasting as a potential Master of Wine.
Tasting Group: Whilst there aren’t a huge number of people studying for high level wine exams in Barcelona, there are some wonderful sommeliers, distributors and enthusiasts to form a small tasting group with. The idea would be to partly practice blind tasting, but also to organise some geeky wine events together, help split costs on bottles and to learn from. I shall be creating something in September for just this purpose.
Tasting Events: This is going to be a big change for me. Having done the majority of my tasting in and around Barcelona, I’m going to need to start thinking more broadly if I want to get a more indepth look at the classics and some eclectic options from around the world. For the course itself I’m budgeting 12 trips a year (the exact schedule to be decided) but between now and then, I suspect 4-6 may be the limit. The IWC should see me in London twice, I intend to try and visit Vinitaly in Verona and then there are 2-3 floating spaces at present. To be decided…
For anyone in the same position, check out the wonderful trade calendar from the WSTA here. London based students really do have the world of wine at their fingertips!
Home Tasting: This is where a lot of my tasting has been done in the past, and it’s where a very large quantity of my income has gone over the last few years. Unfortunately, this simply won’t cut it for the MW hence moving that money across the tastings and trips, yet I’m still going to be drinking wine at home, so the idea is to use that as an opportunity to address recurring problems. Confusing Nebbiolo and Sangiovese? Buy a comparative bottle of each and drink them over the course of a week, glass by glass, evaluating the differences and similarities every day. Don’t ‘get’ Pomerol? Guess what I’ll be drinking for the rest of the month! Not entirely dissimilar to how I approach wine at home now, but with a greater focus on comparing the suspects likely to rear their head in exam conditions. I also have a plan to build up a stock-pile of classic wines that I can taste via Coravin with the help of my lovely fiance (She’ll be thrilled when she finds out, I’m sure).
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! It’s a very dry piece but then I suppose that study plans are rarely exciting. It’s back to the grindstone in terms of workload but there’s really no other way around it. What I haven’t really mentioned is the amount of time I’m going to spend visiting wineries, but I’ll find a way to wrap that up into the theory section as I’m in the process of learning how to drive (slightly embarassing at 29 years old, but better late than never) which will have a big impact on the options I have.
This plan could be tweaked, chopped and changed and all constructive criticism/ideas are certainly welcome! I hope it will give me an elevated foundation to lead from, so that when I start the course in July 2019, I hit the ground running. After speaking to so many people about the course, I completely understand the reasoning behind wanting candidates to have completed the WSET Diploma beforehand, as stylistically there are real similarities in how information is absorbed, understood, deconstructed and then presented. May it serve me well!