As I’ve mentioned previously, there are several different ‘schools of thought’ when it comes to wine education. I frequently get asked about the level of difficulty for each program and in what order it would make the most sense to take courses from different programs to ensure a seamless and continual study path. So here’s a handy chart:

For decades, I resisted getting a Costco membership. It seemed so superfluous; I was single and couldn’t possibly fathom needing to buy things in such large quantities. I am also naturally averse to crowds so going to a packed warehouse with hundreds of people wielding massive shopping carts seemed like a particular form of torture to me.

We all learn and remember things in our own unique ways. With a bit of creativity and focus, we can maximize our study time to achieve better exam results, and who wouldn’t want that? Here’s how:

My first formal online wine tasting was officially conducted while lounging in my PJs on a lazy Saturday morning, gazing out at the trees beyond my desk as I connected with the world-renowned Tuscan winery Marchesi Antinori and a hundred or so other sommeliers scattered around Mexico. My, how things have changed.

Sometimes schools will market WSET classes as being ‘sommelier’ classes, but this is actually quite misleading. You can take WSET classes all the way up to the Diploma Level 4, pass with Distinction (their highest honour), and you still won’t be a Sommelier. This is not to say that WSET courses are bad - quite the opposite in fact.

I bought five bottles of Chilean Pinot Noir and was impressed with all of them. I tasted them in three tranches - first I tasted the two ‘reserva’ wines (in Chile this term generally means a mid-tier wine but doesn’t have the same legal weight as it does in a place like Spain or Italy, where certain rules must be followed before the term can be slapped on a label).

Studying wine online is hard to do. Wine is meant to be shared, so when it’s just you and a bottle and a few textbooks, it can be tempting to give all the attention to the bottle and cast off the actual ‘studying’ part of the equation. But you can overcome this dastardly trap by knowing which of the Four Tendencies you fall into.

Living in paradise is wonderful. In the Before Times, lots of my Canadian friends would come visit Vallarta over the winter months, and I frequently heard the same refrain from many of them that I want to address here: “Why is there no good wine in Puerto Vallarta?” But this common perception is categorically untrue.

If you are choosing to take an online WSET course, think of local Approved Program Providers as you would think of bottle shops. There may be 10 wine stores in your area and all of them offer your favourite selections, so how do you decide which shop to patronize? Generally, a few key considerations come to mind: PRICE, CONVENIENCE, SERVICE, and CONFLICT RESOLUTION.