What Day Is It?
I know that all of you want to get in touch to ask "How did the Exams go?"... So here's how they went.
Good evening, it’s been 3 days since I finished the last MW exam, but it feels like a week or so already. I had Saturday (Hungover) and Sunday (Sleeping) off. I’m back at my day job(s) today, and I haven’t got a day off until Sunday 23rd June. I have NO IDEA what day it is. I’m living completely glued to my iPhone calendar(s), doing precisely what it tells me to do.
So, forgive me if I’m still drifting through for a few weeks. Them’s the breaks.
EDIT: I’ve written the whole newsletter already.
Reading it back sounds like the ramblings of an awkward person who just likes to verbalise dealing with change. And that my friends is that.
I write these newsletters without the social skills to realise I’m talking too much, and without the context of a disinterested person in the room with me.
Arrival
Everything went to plan. That is as much as I can hope for with getting to London on Monday. I’m acutely aware that the MW program is international, and the 3hr drive from Norwich is not a patch on the international flights of many other students.
Let’s get things in context. Packing up my clothes, laptop, glasses and a pencil case, and popping them in the boot of a filthy white, hybrid Toyota Auris, is not strenuous in the grand scheme of things.
I will go on record and say that I got fucked by the Marriott Kensington Car Park, to the tune of £120. I pre-booked a car park space for the week, with no actual spaces available on arrival. I was saved by the Holiday Inn Kensington Car Park down the road. Absolute scenes I tell you.
Plan was get to the flat. Unpack. Eat, study, exam, repeat until Friday.
I did take a stroll to the new exam venue in Kensington. Found the exam room, foyer with a closed door concealing the Stage 1 MW Students sitting their theory exam.
Casually strolled up to the MW staff at the registration table and politely explained “I’m sitting exams here next week, I’m just having a quick check that this is the right place”.
The confused reply of “Do you mean tomorrow?” came back to me, and I just said “yep, thanks, yep, correct … the wine ones…” and wandered back to my flat, via Sainsbury’s.
Tuesday Morning
If you’ve read, depressingly, the exact same newsletter from the first week of June 2023, you’ll know I’m pretty prepped. You’ll know I hand-write the practical exams and type the theory exams.
The tables this year were narrower than last year. If you go to a fancy dinner out, you get a nice big table and maybe, at a push, 4 glasses? When you’re sitting MW exams you get 12 glasses, and you need space for either a laptop or an A4 answer sheet.
On the first morning I had to deal with the situation that the desks were narrower than normal. I couldn’t quite spread the glasses along the desk and fit my handwritten answer sheet on the desk as well as usual. Drama. I got over it.
In the MW exams you’re also allowed to use whatever glasses you like. That choice is on you, it’s different to WSET with those horrid, standardised ISO glasses. The way that you choose to asses the wines is up to you.
Someone in the room had 12 x Zalto Universals, and I don’t know how they do it. Imagine breaking one! £50 each. Imagine breaking 2 x Zaltos on an exam day, and still not being as far out of pocket as booking the Marriot Kensington Car Park and it being full on arrival. They didn’t break any.
Practical Exams
Practical Paper 1 - White wines. I’d properly cocked these up last year, and didn’t really, honestly realise quite how badly until results day.
I’m, 99% certain that I’ve done better than last year on this paper.
The Institute (IMW) will be publishing the wines next week, and I’ll give you a bit of a breakdown then.
Practical Paper 2 & 3 - Wednesday and Thursday morning. Who the hell knows how I’ve done here. I know I missed the first three red (P2) wines for variety, but most of the marks are for winemaking which I did pretty well on I thinkI know I nailed variety on the last 5 reds, but most of the marks are for style / commercial / origin. So, what gives, no point doing a good job in the bits that matter less.
In general I feel better today about the tasting papers than I did a few days after the last time. Does that make sense?
Theory Exams
Fuck these are hard. You just never know.
How many numbers do you need?
Is a winery as relevant as a person?
I still don’t properly know what a good essay looks like when written in 45 minutes.
‘Knowing what good looks like’. I think the thought an interesting concept, because how do you ever really know if you’re writing a good essay1, if you don’t know what good looks like.
I know what a good, prepared, all-afternoon-to-write-and-research-one-practice-essay looks like.
I think my essay writing is better, but how do you ever know if you’ve done enough to pass?
The examiner reports seem to say that you have to cover everything. I wonder if that is with a full 200 word paragraph, or just covering off the options of the theory. How do you include a real life example with critical analysis of all the theory in 45 minutes?
Anyway, that’s what I tried to do better this year, cover ground with theory, assess the options, and back it up with analysis of a real life example.
I took Christoph’s2 advice and wrote more, shorter paragraphs too. Less waffle. As you’ll know from these newsletter, ‘Succinct’ is one of my many middle names.
Routine
People say to me they don’t know how they’d do 8 exams in a week.
If I cleared my diary for the next three months, and did two exams a day for 12 weeks as my 9-5, without all the other stuff that comes with having a job… I’d be fine.
I like the routine. I like the focus. I like the process. I like knowing nods that we’re all in the same position. I don’t like getting stiffed by the Marriott Kensington Car Park.
I’d miss being at home too. Results are in early September. I don’t really want to do it again next year, but I could if I had to.
I’ve got a few ideas for things to do over the summer. Write more, bake more bread, more puzzle Sundays, start the podcast3, get fit, drink less but better, go to the pub, start the band.
dk
Further Listening.
The Maker and The Merchant, Podcast.
I’m gonna be on an Episode for English Wine Week in June at somepoint.
I got this concept from my buddy Max.
Christophe Heynen MW
More on that next week.
Good luck, good luck, good luck!!