WSET Diploma: Theory
Apparently, the theory portion of the WSET Diploma exams is the largest obstacle for examinees. According to the latest examiner’s report, the October D3 exam saw 83% candidates pass the tasting exam, but only 59% of the candidates passed the theory exam. This is not surprising, as there is a ton of information to digest in the WSET textbooks and only a short amount of time to get a cohesive, thoughtful response to the exam prompts down on the papers. Below are some thoughts on what I think helped me along the way in my theory exams.
Let’s get the easy ones out of the way.
When I say “easy”, I don’t mean that they are easy to do, just that they do not require a lot of explanation.
Start Revision Early. Life can derail you at any time, but it doesn’t have to throw you completely off course if you start early. Plan for contingencies!
Read the Examiner’s Reports Early in the Process. There is a ton of useful information in the reports, and it’s an inside look into the examiners’ mindset when they are reading our papers.
Mind your penmanship. The examiners have said that they will dock points for egregiously bad penmanship. It’s tempting to just scribble away and hope that the examiners can read between the lines, but from the examiner’s reports, the examiners seem quite grumpy when they have to read bad handwriting that makes it difficult to understand what we are saying, and they seem unwilling to guess what we mean.
When in revision mode, study the unfamiliar regions or topics first. Australia and California were always challenging regions for me - many small sub-regions I wasn’t familiar with, very similar grapes and lots of geography to memorize. On top of all of that, these regions are always taught at the end of the courses towards the back of the WSET books. For D3, I made sure to study them first to have enough time to digest them and by the time I took my exam, I actually felt very comfortable with these regions.
Systematically Use Real-Life Examples In Your Responses
I studied my ass off for the WSET Unit 1 (Wine Production), and I felt pretty good coming out of the exam, as I knew all of the information required to answer the questions. But then I only got a “Pass” on my exam!
I was relieved that I didn’t have to re-take the D1 exam again and the science of wine production was not really my forte, so I didn’t really question the score and just moved on to the D2 Unit (Wine Business).
But then I took the exam for D2, and I only got a freakin’ “Pass” again, even though I knew the material backwards and forwards cold, I had gotten a Distinction score for Theory on my L3 exam and I’m a lawyer for goodness sake! I was frustrated, but at this point, I had to question whether there was something wrong with my exam technique. I realized that there was something I was missing in my response that wasn’t getting me better scores on the theory exams.
The WSET Diploma Theory Guidance paper states:
“The Diploma examinations will assess your knowledge of the world of wines by testing both your ability to recall relevant facts correctly and how you apply those facts to the question. ”
It further states:
“Particularly at Diploma, the examiners are not just looking for evidence that you have acquired the necessary level of knowledge, but also that you are able to interpret what you have learned and apply it in a focused way to answer a specific question.”
To me, the key word above is “apply”, and “apply”, as used above, means showing that you know how theoretical concepts translate to real-world issues in the wine world. I did not start getting better scores on my theory exams until I committed myself to consistently providing real-world examples in my exam responses with the intent to demonstrate to the examiners that I not only knew my material but was able to see how it fit into concrete scenarios.
Here’s an example:
For a hypothetical D1 exam question, “Describe the role of blending in wine production”, here is a condensed partial response Old Viv would have written:
“1. Producers blend wines to create balance in wine. They can blend together batches of wines from different parcels in the vineyard with lower acidity with those of higher acidity to create a more balanced wine, or they can blend together different varieties of varying levels of acidity and alcohol levels to make sure that the alcohol is not overwhelming or the acidity too low to make the wine feel flabby or the acidity too high to make the wine feel sour.
2. Producers blend wines to achieve a certain style of wine. Certain producers have a particular house style of wine that customers expect from year to year, and blending helps achieve that particular style from a number of different batches in store at the winery. Alternatively, producers can choose to blend certain batches to create wines of different quality levels within their portfolio and feature different styles for such quality or price levels.
3. …”
Old Viv answered the question clearly, and the response was organized and structured, so she should get a Distinction on the paper, right?
Here’s how New Viv would answer this question:
“1. Producers blend wines to create balance in wine. They can blend together batches of wines from different parcels in the vineyard with lower acidity with those of higher acidity to create a more balanced wine, or they can blend together different varieties of varying levels of acidity and alcohol levels to make sure that the alcohol is not overwhelming or the acidity too low to make the wine feel flabby or the acidity too high to make the wine feel sour. For example, in Bordeaux, producers in the Médoc routinely blend Cabernet Sauvignon from sites containing more gravel soils, where Cabernet Sauvignon tends to thrive, with Merlot from sites containing more clay soils where Merlot tends to thrive. Merlot tends to have lower tannins and higher sugar levels than Cabernet and can be used to soften out the higher acidity and tannin levels of Cabernet Sauvignon and create a more balanced wine in what might otherwise have been a sharply tannic or highly acidic wine with lower alcohol content.
2. Producers blend wines to achieve a certain style of wine. Certain producers have a particular house style of wine that customers expect from year to year, and blending helps achieve that particular style from a number of different batches in store at the winery. For example, large Champagne houses, such as Veuve Clicquot or Billecart-Salmon, have non-vintage wines that are blends of batches of wines from different years whose aim is to reflect a certain house style of the brand. Alternatively, producers can choose to blend certain batches to create wines of different quality levels within their portfolio and feature different styles for such quality levels. For instance, in Burgundy, a producer may want to blend only wines from only certain sites producing high quality grapes to make premium wines that can achieve premier cru or grand cru classifications while blending batches of wines for village-level or regional-level wines from sites across a larger number of sites across the region that would expect to offer a lower price point for the customer.
3. …”
How did New Viv’s answer stack up against Old Viv’s answer?
Old Viv obviously knew the role of blending and answered the question accurately and clearly, so she should definitely at least pass, but did she demonstrate that she has mastery of the material over and beyond other candidates to achieve an esteemed Distinction score? No. Old Viv may have known all the same information that New Viv did, as New Viv’s response was based on some rudimentary material from L3, but New Viv showed the examiners that, not only does she know the various roles of blending in the production of wine, but also that she is able to apply this information in the real world of wine production. In my D3, D4 and D5 exams, I made sure to try to include the names of producers or specific famous wine brands where relevant, and if I were to go back to my D2 exam, I would make sure to be prepared to use the names of major cooperatives, brands (and their various rungs within their ladder brands) and such other real-world examples in my responses.
I really believe now that the exam process at the Diploma level is to be performative and to actively show off your knowledge. Demonstrate to the examiners that you know the materials above a cursory level and that you deserve to have those DipWSET letters after your name! Yes, the second response took a few more minutes to write out, but as one famous wine lover Winston Churchill once said, “Success always demands a greater effort.”
This strategy of systematically using real-world examples in theory responses may seem like common sense, but, as we all know, once the exam clock starts ticking, all logical thinking goes out the window and your brain becomes a bowl of oatmeal. Having a consistent formulation for how you set up your theory responses saves time in framing your responses when you are under pressure. I am not saying that this is the only way to get a “Merit” or “Distinction” on theory exams, but for me, it was a key strategy that I believe helped me pick up easy points on my later theory exams, with a “Merit” on the theory portion of the D3 Beast!
Supplement Your Understanding
The WSET Theory Guidance states that candidates are not required to read additional resources outside of the eBooks to pass and that you can pass and even gain a Distinction grade by solely referring to the information in the WSET texts.
I took this way too literally for my first two Diploma exams. I believe it is true that you can pass the theory exams using just the WSET books, but I think it is extremely difficult to write a thorough essay response demonstrating your mastery of the topics by reading only the WSET books. For one thing, the WSET books are dense and full of information, so it is sometimes difficult to parse out what is important just from the text and to discern the nuances of what makes a wine region special. I realized that once I listened to a podcast in which someone mentioned a particular topic or issue or after I read a website article that confirmed what was in the WSET text, it helped the material stick with me.
A few supplemental materials I used while I was studying for the Diploma theory exams:
Books:
“Understanding Wine Technology: The Science of Wine Explained” by David Bird. I actually started reading this while studying for my D3 exam because I needed a quick refresher of wine production concepts but I didn’t have the time to re-read the D1 book. I wish that I had known of it while going through D1 because David Bird explains extremely technical concepts clearly and for the lay person in mind.
“Port and the Douro” and “Madeira: The Islands and Their Wines”, by Richard Mayson. Most people don’t drink Port or Madeira on a daily basis (unless they’re from the United Kingdom or lived in Portugal). Mayson’s books do a great job of filling out the history of the regions and the nuances of the different wine styles.
“Vineyards, Rocks and Soils: The Wine Lover’s Guide to Geology” by Alex Maltman. The Diploma textbooks provide brief sentences about soil types, such as “[Chablis] has limestone and clay soils, some of which has a considerable amount of fossilized seashells and is known as Kimmeridgian soil” but the textbooks do not get much deeper on the topic of soil. I realized that soil and wine geology is something that many experienced wine professionals do not touch with a ten-foot pole. A lot of wine professionals will make remarks about the soil in which the grapes are grown, but they tend to be hesitant about getting deeper into how these two components relate to each other, as wine geology is admittedly a very complicated, technical and still very much mysterious subject. Maltman is willing to get deeper on the correlation between wine and geology, and while he is does not necessarily make conclusive statements about geology and its effect on wine, his discussions on the book will help you understand the fundamentals of the different rock types (e.g., sedimentary versus metamorphic) and where they show up in many of the great wine regions of the world. This was one of the most challenging books I have ever read, and I don’t think that it necessarily gives you information you need to know for the exams, but I think it helps when you see these terse phrases about soil types in the WSET textbooks, and I highly recommend giving the book a read while you are in between Diploma courses.
Podcasts:
Wine for Normal People, hosted by Elizabeth Schneider. When I was in Rioja in early 2022, both my guide at Vina Tondoñia and a WSET instructor I was on a wine tour with mentioned this podcast as one of their study guides, so I had to check it out. I ended up listening to at least two-thirds of the 400+ episodes that were released. Elizabeth Schneider truly loves wine and is committed to doing her own research on the topics of grape varieties, great wine regions of the world and also doing interviews with both small and large producers, with a special focus on sustainability and climate change issues. Not everything she says lines up with the WSET materials, so definitely make sure to follow the published WSET materials, and take her whole anti-natural wine stance with a grain of salt, but this podcast brought the topics in my Diploma courses to life.
Interpreting Wine, hosted by Lawrence Francis. Lawrence records many of his episodes with WSET Diploma students specifically in mind. In some episodes, he featured the top-performing WSET candidates (now DipWSET holders), and he interviewed them about their experiences and their words of advice for other candidates. In others, he’s done guided tasting episodes on wine styles, such as Port, Sherry and rosé, with experts in their fields that are specifically targeted to Diploma students. He has also done fantastic episodes on certain wine regions, such as Austria, or wine types such as Sherry. I found the Austrian wine series so helpful in my studies that I actually was hoping for an Austrian wine question on the theory exam.
Websites:
Wine-Searcher.com. While I was in revision mode, I made it a habit to look up all of the wine regions or grapes I hadn’t previously come into contact with on wine-searcher.com. The WSET textbooks are so concise and dense that it is often easy to overlook key features about a wine region, and every time I looked up a region and saw something I also saw in my WSET book, I was able to recognize that this was an important feature of this region and it helped cement this information in my mind. I relied on this website especially for sorting out the nuances between the sub-regions of the United States AVAs and the Australian wine regions.
Sherry Notes by Ruben Luyten. This website is such a comprehensive guide to Sherry that I didn’t bother buying any physical books about Sherry. This website describes the various categories of Sherry, has articles describing the ageing process of Sherry (a key feature of this style of wine!) and has comprehensive notes on Sherry producers.
Some parting thoughts:
A lot of people get very upset when they receive a “Pass” instead of a “Merit” or “Distinction” at the Diploma level because they got “Merit” or “Distinction” on their L1, L2 or L3 exams. The gap between what is required of candidates at the Diploma level and all of the prior levels is massive, and it is still a huge achievement to obtain a “Pass” and one to be full-heartedly celebrated. These tips are not meant to make anyone feel like their “Pass” makes them any less worthy of the Diploma, but they are intended to make the study process hopefully a little less intimidating and more fun as we all broaden out our knowledge base in the world of wine while working toward achieving the Diploma.
