One Month To Go

“Bite-size, relatable insight, for people who like drinking wine…”

Hey Team,

Firstly, an Apology…

…Or a poor excuse. Whichever you fancy.

I haven’t written anything since the 2nd of April. Just a smidge over a month ago. I’ve had a nagging sense that I’m letting around 10%¹ of you down, and the rest of you probably just forgot you’d signed up.

Anyhow, I spotted that the MW that helped me kick off the whole thing subscribed to the Newsletter². I remembered, that as well as being on perhaps the first attempt at the home straight of the S2 Exam, that I do have an obligation to you readers.

I wouldn’t have started this newsletter without you. And. I wouldn’t have started the MW process without you either. I’m clearly not doing it for my benefit.

Newsletter Year One: Complete

For those of you that have been around long enough to remember it, I kicked off this Substack newsletter pretty much precisely 1 year ago. Long before your nan had her own Substack account too.

I started it off with this gambit, back when I had long hair.

Give Me Your Money

I was reminded of this milestone for two reasons.

1. Subscription Renewals

I saw quite a few renewals coming through for the yearly subscriptions. So here is your delicate reminder that if you paid around a year ago, and have totally forgotten about it, if you don’t jump ship now, I’ll take another payday from you shortly.

Fair Warning.

There are a good number of you that chip in, and help cover the costs of my MW studies by paying to read an ostensibly free newsletter.

However, for those of you that don’t…there is some solid gold that is now tucked behind a paywall.

A Recipe for Banana Loaf

2. Milestones Hit

Some Stats:³

I recently ticked over 500+ subscribers. Which, although not in the super league, I was pretty pleased.

10% of subscribers pay to read. This number has been pretty steady since I launched the newsletter. To have a steady number of new subscribers choosing to pay, fills my heart as well as my ‘MW Savings’ Starling Account.

So much so, that the revenue from the newsletter this year pretty much covered the exam fee. I think that’s a nice little way of framing the MW fees, and, hopefully a way for those of you that do chip in to contextualise how you’re helping.

The MW fees for 2023/24 are here: 2023 – 24 Study Programme Fees

I covered the Study Fees, £5k+ myself, and the Exam Fee, £2k+ was just about covered by you lot. You bloody superstars

One Month To Go

The last month has mostly been crafting my ‘MEGA PREP DOC’⁴ for each Theory Paper.

They started out with the idea that I’d be able to distil all my my notes from the last couple of years for each theory paper, into a single revision doc.

Turns out I’ve essentially copied and pasted loads of other documents into one, without doing the ‘distilling it down’ bit. Ho Hum.

The plan for these docs are to be the last thing I read the night before, and the lunchtime of, the exam each day.

The Exam Week format is Practical (tasting) in the morning, and Theory in the afternoon.

Each evening I’ll do a bit of calibration tasting for the upcoming Practical paper, then spend the rest of the evening reading and re-reading my MEGA PREP DOC for the Theory paper the next day.

Followed by some more early morning calibration tastings, and some more mega-prepping over lunch.

Sounds easy right. One day at a time, four days in a row.

On the Friday night, I will be getting drunk. I’ll let you know where.

dk

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Further Reading

Things I’ve been reading today…

The Future of NFT’s in the Wine business, by Simon Pavitt for JaneAnson.com

“Every now and then we get hit by a wave of very clever people all saying something similar, often driven by progress in technology coupled with an increase in clarity on what that technology could make possible…

Then in retrospect that shift gets given a name, such as the ‘sharing economy’ (think Airbnb, Lyft ride sharing and Lime scooters) and the gig economy (think Uber, Deliveroo food delivery, Fiverr for design and so on).

We are now in a phase called the ‘creator economy’: a software-facilitated economy that allows creators to earn revenue from their creations through many, normally digital, channels.”

NFTs and their Future in Wine

Some stuff about the influence of influencers, from Wine Intelligence.

Millennial and LDA Gen Z drinkers in the UK are not significantly more influenced by social media compared with other UK wine drinkers.

Levels of trust in information given by a wine blogger or expert are higher at 40%, but friends, family and colleagues (75%) remain by far the most trusted sources of information for UK regular wine drinkers.

Does Social Media Impact Wine Choice?

1. The 10% of you that pay to subscribe…

2. THANK YOU

3. If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know that I love a good stat.

4. They’re actually called that.