Stage 2 Exam 2023, Practical Paper 2

A run down of the wines, the questions, and my answers.

Right, Paper 2. Red Wines.

We’ll get to it, but as part of my morning prep, I tasted one of the wines in my AirBnb, then missed identifying it in the exam. Such is life.

Paper 2 - Red Wines, an Overview.

After the focus on Paper 1 being on variety, quality, and winemaking, the focus of Paper 2 was very much on Origin, 96 marks from 300 being specifically for Origin, meaning yes, theoretically, you could get 100% of the marks elsewhere, get all of the origins wrong, and still pass, but you’d really be pushing it.

It was key therefore to underpin your origin arguments with grape variety, and not lead with it. You could get broadly in the right direction with origin, and not specifically reference the grapes or blend, but it would certainly help.

But, you know what, thinking about it now, I have no idea if I did that or not. Let’s just hope I did.

There weren’t many wines here that I didn’t get spot on, OR, completely, totally, glaringly cock them up. No middle ground for me.

The thing to remember is that the 65% pass mark is an aggregate across the paper, so on average 17 marks per wine, or 12 on some and 21 on others. If Origin is 8 marks, you can skip that and still hit the 17 marks per wine.

This paper was split into three flights of four wines, so three 100 mark sections.

Playing the averages brings small comfort.