FWS Exam Today

OK, I took my French Wine Scholar exam today. I think I did really well. ( Hope I didn't just jinx myself with that comment ). The exam could have been much harder. One of the other students, Gordana commented that she felt that there must have been trick questions, because in general they seemed so easy.

Now, Gordana is really smart and it won't surprise me to hear she got 100% on the test, and I am even thinking that i got mid 90s on it.

I have been studying - average about 2-3 hours a day, I think, on this test since early June - so about 2 months' worth of work. 120-150 total hours which makes sense for a 250 page text book. I self-studied but did buy / attend a review class ( with lunch !) from San Francisco Wine School and there I met David Glancy, MS,CWE and Maureen Downey, DWS, CWE. David taught me a trick in that he made up mnemonics for everything, and I started doing it too and it really works, even if the mnemonic is a little nutty. For example, Must John Really Make Such Bad Noodles (M,J,R,M,S,B,N) tells me the the order that wine bottles grow in size from Magnum to Nebuchadnezzar. ( It was on the test today! - A Jeroboam is 4 bottles ).

Want to learn the 10 Beaujolais Cru villages ? (North to South) Saint Julia Childs Makes Fine Coffee Mornings, Regularly Before Breakfast. (St Amour, Julienas, Chenas, Moulon-a-vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Regnie, Cote-de-Brouilly, Brouilly).

Need to learn the major Middle-Loire AOCs ? West to East (more or less) : See A Beautiful Lion Sleeping Quietly Be-Cause she is Very Tired. Savennieres, Anjou, Bonnezeau, Coteaux de Layon, Saumur, Quarts de Chaume, (Chaume), Bourgueil, (St Nicolas de Bourgueil), Chinon, Vouvray, Touraine.

It seems ridiculous, but it really works. At least for me, your mileage may vary.

David's colleague Maureen is just a doll. I think she has been studying for her Master of Wine even before she was old enough to drink legally. She gave us an extra, informal, review session on a Sunday morning. And if nothing else, she convinced me that I would do good on the test and that they weren't going to ask the really hard questions on the test. (Name the 4 French AOCs that require oak aging ). This saved a lot of panic studying. Thanks, Maureen. If you ever google yourself, I hope you find this !!

Not that panicking was out of the question, however. I was tense going into the test. Passing grade is a 75%. There are 100 questions. So it wasn't until I got past question #75 - with only a couple of questions that I wasn't sure of, before I started breathing easier. When i figured out that the questions after #85 weren't getting any harder, then I was practically cheering. I was going to do pretty good.

There were a couple of almost trick questions, but the text book had pointed out that we should not mistake Beaumes-de-Venise ( who makes red wine ) with Muscat Beaumes-de-Venise which makes a really good tasting fortified vin du natural out of the white Muscat grape. That one was on the test.

One question that I did have some trouble with, but corrected, is also a common mistake, and I almost fell for it. It regarded Gevrey-Chambertin Grand Cru AOC. ( you wine geeks already know where I am going with this ). Gevrey-Chambertin is a village in the Cotes de Nuits - Burgundy that makes some of the best Pinot Noirs. It has 9 Grand Cru vineyards in the village. And that is the problem. In Burgundy it is the Vineyard that is the AOC not the Village - at least for the Grand Crus. So Chambertin is a Grand Cru AOC. Gevrey-Chambertin is a village, and Gevrey Chambertin Grand Cru AOC is just a big mistake. And they almost had me, because they through in some name I never heard of in another answer and I went for that at first, until I thought things out. A rookie mistake. A lucky catch.

As I mentioned before, I like the French Wine Scholar program, the text has some errors but in general is very good. The on-line study aid pretty much mirrors the book, and could probably be bypassed, but I bought it in combination with the review session, the exam fees, and a free lunch, so I thought it a good deal. Plus the quizzes for each of the on-line modules are invaluable. We talked about this during the review session and decided that the quizzes on the on-line review are actually harder than the final exam. David mentioned that he did the review quizzes over and over until he got a perfect score on each of them, then he took the exam. I thought that a good idea, so I included it in my study program, and i think it works.

Like most of the tests I have taken for wine certification, this was a fair test. You can do well on it with a reasonable amount of study. It seems over-whelming at first because there is a LOT of detail. Once you realize that you don't have to know the various maximum Hectoliters / Hectare for each AOC or the specific production numbers, then the level of detail becomes tolerable. Once you break it into manageable bites it is a lot easier to digest.

Finally once you have reviewed it 3-4 times, you start to realize just what it is that matters, and what would be a fair question on a test. Then your 30 pages of notes gets whittled down to a page per region, and you begin to realize that this isn't going to be a hard test. Plus after the 2nd or 3rd review, the terms aren't new and unfamiliar any more, you begin talking like a Frenchman. ( PS - This is another thing the online course is good for. Lisa Aires, the narrator, uses French pronunciation on the various terms and you begin to say them correctly and you don't keep trying to turn them into English ) Believe it or not, once the terms become familiar ( I almost spelled that 'becaume' because it sounded French ) - once the words are familiar the facts then start to stand out and they lock in better.

So ... the test is over, we get results in about 2 weeks. I can decompress and get a few days respite, and probably need to do some chores around the house.

What next ? Too many choices. I wish there was an Italian Wine Scholar type program. ( If you know of one please leave a comment. ).

But now I have to decide .... I need to either research and write a 2500 word paper on advances in winemaking (Part 1 - due in November) for my Unit 1 WSET exam or I can study Italy and the rest of the world in order to sit for the Certified Wine Educator exam in September. I also still need to prepare for Wine Judge Certification - Year 1 test in November. Plus there is the in-person written exam (Part 2) on a currently unknown topic for WSET which will likely require 2-3 weeks of research in October (when they tell us what the general area of the topic will be) if I want to take it in November. I don't know if I can do it all.

But today I passed my test. And tonight we are going to celebrate with pizza and Champagne. BTW, in case nobody ever mentioned it, Champagne goes with just about everything, except for maybe wedding cake, which is kind of ironic when you think about when we normally drink it. I do also need to add the disclaimer here, that since I am a Certified Location Specialist regarding Champagne and Porto, that this is indeed real Champagne from Champagne France (Only from Champagne and nowhere else!) and not just sparkling wine. Although Sparkling wine probably also goes pretty good with pizza, too.

john