I've officially passed WSET Diploma!

I’ve finally finished my WSET Diploma exams! Check out that fancy certificate and pin.

For those of you that have been around since I started writing these, thank you for following along with my journey and these extremely occasional posts. If you’re thinking to start Diploma, stick around because this is my entire Diploma journey summarized. If not, well enjoy the review.

Ok, so here’s the thing. I had been working on Diploma for quite a bit longer than this little series has been around. If you can believe it, I started Diploma in July 2020. I began to study for my D1 exam the following August, figuring it’s a good way to pass the time until that pandemic thing settles down in the next couple months.

As you no doubt experienced, life had different plans for all of us in the 5 years since then.

Just so we’re all on the same page here, this is a summary of the 6 units that make up WSET Diploma:

• D1: Wine Production

• D2: Wine Business

• D3: Still Wines

• D4: Sparkling Wines

• D5: Fortified Wines

• D6: Research paper

I won’t go into the details on how WSET grades these or the weighting applied to each, but if you’re curious about that kind of thing you can find here it is straight from the source. The D1 and D2 exams must be completed first, though the specific order doesn’t matter. After that any exams D3 to D6 can be accomplished in any order. The D6 research papers are organized by a choice of topic, twice per year. WSET gives you the choice of topic and you write your paper on that topic.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane here. Your Diploma journey may differ from mine of course. That said if you’re just starting Diploma and you also plan to take your exams during an unexpected global pandemic followed by economic recessions, please feel free to let me know by email. I’d love to ask you some questions.

If you’re not taking the exams at all and never plan to, that’s cool too. I think you’ll still enjoy this history lesson.

For me, there are three distinct periods of time that stand out. These periods are not necessarily correlated with the exams themselves, but rather three distinct stages in my journey. You’ll see.

A few short months after finishing my Level 3 Certification, a prerequisite to Diploma, I decided to move forward with the first two exams. D1 and D2, that’s Wine Production and Wine Business, were offered as a package from my program provider, Grape Experience. For the most part I was able to continue from here just as I had with Level 3.

Fortunately for me, I read quite a lot outside the context of Level 3 and had been making wine on the side at home in small, 30-bottle batches. In a way these two units were a bit of a review from the previous exam’s material, plus additional details. I went into my D1 exam confident that I’d pass (and I did).

One thing I was distinctly not prepared for though is just how much damn writing you have to do in the short period for the exam.

Handwriting. Not typing.

I think I wrote more (by hand) during this short period than at least the past several years combined. The physical toll on your hand during these exams is not to be underestimated. You have to train for this.

Things really picked up by the time my D2 exam rolled around in October. Masked up, hands somewhat more trained for extensive writing, I passed my D2 exam without issue.

Then things starting to get weird. Remember that little global pandemic that was picking up around mid-2020?

By this time, it’s late 2020. The Covid pandemic is really gearing up complete with stay at home orders in San Francisco. Most of the outside world is closed down and few businesses are open for in-person customers or at all. Rather than continue on to D3 from here, I decided to skip over to the D4 Sparkling Wine exam. This was largely fueled by a full wine tasting kit offered by one of my instructors, Matt Gaughan, through his wine club blackpoolmatt’s wine club.

With no in-person courses, I was a little nervous about the tasting portion. Fortunately the two Zoom sessions to taste wine together took care of that. It was also around this time that I started to think about improving how I study. I mostly fumbled around, took copious handwritten notes, and did practice exams. Plus I love a good sparkling wine, so why not cheer up my otherwise lonely, gloomy, kind-of-boring days with some bubbles?

A few months later, mask on and hand toned for 90 minutes of writing, I passed D4 around January 2021.

At this point I’m a little burnt out. Pandemic weirdness, three exams in a row, and a job I enjoyed less and less each day were taking their toll. As is my nature in these situations, it’s time to change.

I decided to do my D6 Research assignment instead of continue to D3. That seemed like a great thing to do since I could do it from home plus it offered a change of pace. Oh ya, by this time everyone was officially at home and even more physical stores in San Francisco were shutting down. I figured I could pick up D3 again when things went back to normal in another couple months. Again.

The topic of choice at the time was Sustainability in Wine. I was somewhat familiar with both recent sustainability topics and had some background in atmospheric science to pull from left over from grad school if I needed it.

I passed in short order.

In hindsight this was probably the easiest of the 6 units for me. Your mileage may vary depending on your background with research and writing.

We’re around July 2021 now, though I finished the paper about a month earlier. Things were very much not back to normal. I was still burnt out. I soldiered on to take D5 anyway, thinking the smaller exam would give me space to ramp back up. I did the bare minimum to study for it, didn’t do any tasting, and failed. In my already burnt out state, that wasn’t fun.

I had continued to study for D3 during that time as well, but eventually dropped out of the classes. I didn’t have the energy anymore, plus that isolating pandemic and draining job weren’t letting up.

And then I stopped Diploma entirely in February 2022. Indefinitely.

A lot of non-wine-related things went on between when I stopped Diploma and picked it back up again. More or less it can be summed up as me experimenting with various business ideas, building apps, making mistakes, and moving on.

Let’s jump to a more relevant time for newsletter purposes.

In March 2023 I endeavored to finish to Diploma starting that dreaded D5 Fortified Wine exam. With an exam date in June of that year. That’s what originally started this newsletter and some of you all jumped on board. My thought was if I really engaged with the material, I would be able to pass.

Also I needed a way to make myself more interested in a category of wines I, at the time, didn’t particularly care for that much. Here’s a throwback to one of those first articles, complete with beautifully drawn diagrams. Fun, huh?

Well, if you think that worked out for me I have news for you. It didn’t.

Despite weekly deeper dives on these topics, in person tasting, and exam review I still failed D5. Of course I didn’t find out I failed the exam until later, there is a months long delay after all.

Did I give up though? No, I’m too stubborn for that. I was a bit shaken though and Diploma and I were once again on thin ice. Then something changed.

In July 2023 I left my job (yep, still that same draining job from 2021). My plan was more or less, figure it out. I started a game studio, Moon Mantis Games, the following August after taking some well-needed recovery time.

After a couple months of doing absolutely nothing but game dev, I thought I should have a little balance in my life. I decided to relax by once again endeavoring to pass WSET Diploma. I have an odd definition of relaxation.

From that point forward until the time of my exam (conveniently also the time my first game released, that wasn’t stressful at all), I lived game dev, wine, and exercise. Here’s a glance at my typical weekend in the rooftop lounge of my then apartment in Oakland.

These practice sessions, combined with my in-person tasting classes through Grape Experience, ultimately led to me passing the exam. I didn’t really feel tired afterwards either. It was great.

But now…

That dreaded D5 Fortified exam, again. I wasn’t going to fail this time.

I applied those same techniques as I did in D3 to the D5 exam this time. I went pretty hardcore with it and did mock exams every week for about 6 weeks prior to the actual exam. Turns out, ChatGPT is really great at coming up with practice questions with a little creative prompting and filtering.

And this time, finally, I passed.

Stepping back a little to how I became a rockstar at studying for WSET exams, let’s talk about learning methods. I promise this will be short.

From the point I re-started in 2023 to when passed D5, I really leveled up how I approached learning. Learning methods have been an interest area for me for years, but this is where I really started to nerd out. I experimented quite a lot over the course of D3 until I finally developed a system that, at least in my opinion, works really great. I still use some of these in things in how I take notes today.

I went over some of this as applied to the D5 exam in this article

That's a wrap for WSET Diploma D5

·

January 8, 2025

That’s right. WSET Diploma D5, the Fortified Wines exam which I seemingly struggled with so much, is now in the books. I passed!

As I mention there, I used the same system during D3. Especially doing those weekly mock practice exams was key for both training my writing muscles and cementing the material in my mind. Remember, this is a test of not only mental acuity but physical endurance.

The real unlock in my opinion was figuring out how to poke GPT to give me unlimited exam practice questions. I could come up with them myself, sure, but GPT didn’t hold the punches on topics I didn’t want to write about. That is a very good thing.

If by chance you’re interested in using these techniques to pass your exams, let me know. For real this time.

Well, to be honest I don’t really know. I’m in a bit of a transition phase as I step away from my game studio and on to… something else. Still figuring that part out.

As far as this little newsletter goes though, it seems like a way I can continue to learn and talk about wine. I obviously enjoy it given how long I spent on Diploma plus taking on the extra work to write these in the first place. I’d like to get on a more regular cadence for publishing these, maybe bi-weekly to start. We’ll see.

When will I do that?

Unclear.

I can say this though, I’m feeling the need for yet another rebrand!

Over the coming days I’ll put some more thought into what I want to write about here. My next month will be busy as I prepare for an extended stay in Japan starting in May plus try to figure out what my new business focus is going to be. Maybe I’ll write about wine bars in Japan.

Feel free to drop ideas for what you’d want to read about down below.

Either way, see you all again soon.