My WSET Wine Journey…Part Two…The Failures…
05/18/2025
Lisa C. Rutt, DipWSET, CSW, WSET Certified Educator
My WSET Wine Journey…Part 2…The Failures!!
The year is 2018…and I begin WSET Diploma…
Unit 1 – Viticulture/Vinification – Pass!
Unit 2 – The Business of Wine – Pass!
I was rolling right along! I’m thinking..this isn’t so hard! I’ll be through Diploma in no time!
Unit 3 – Light Wines of the World
Tasting – Fail
Theory – Fail
What a wake up call that test was!
Now, in my defense, back then, the entire program was very different. There was no curriculum. They literally said, “Anything, in any book about wine, is fair game to be on the test”
Also in my defense, sometimes, life gets in the way of your wine journey. You have to keep everything in perspective. Wine certifications are important, but people, especially your family, are more important. There were some heavy, personal things, going on in my life at that time, and I was simply unable to prepare adequately for the test. Also now, there is curriculum to help you prepare for the test. I literally tried to memorize, The Oxford Companion to Wine, which has approximately 1,000 pages. It might have been a little too much to take on! In other words, with no guidance of how to prepare for this test, I went too broad, not focusing enough on the basics.
I thought my first failure in wine would make me want to quit. But instead, it motivated me even more! Now I knew what the test would look like, and although the test is always different, at least now I understood what I had done wrong in my preparation and now, I had direction.
I carried on…
I went on to Unit 6 – Independent Research Assignment (The Paper) – By then I had found out that you didn’t have to go in order! (I didn’t even know this!)
The subject I chose was Natural Wines. I received a Pass!
Unit 4 – Sparkling wines. Pass!
For some crazy reason I decided it was time to take retake the test I had failed, Unit 3- Light Wines of the World, again. Weird, because most people take it last. I took it third and then I took it again, when I still had another test to pass, Fortified Wines. By this time, WSET had a curriculum to help you prepare for the tests. I spent six months studying…meanwhile, working on improving my tasting notes. By this time, the test was now a two-day test!!! I had to stay in a hotel in Philadelphia in between test days. For me this ordeal was extremely stressful, and by the time I took the two day test, I was just hoping to have passed one half of the exam. I though, if I could just pass theory or tasting…I’d be happy!
Three months after taking the test, while working as a flight attendant on a flight to Dallas, sitting on my jump seat, I received an email with my exam results.
Theory: Pass
Tasting: Pass
I started hyperventilating and crying right in front of the passengers! I didn’t want to upset the passengers, so I got out of my jump seat and I ran to the galley and started sobbing! I got down on my hands and knees and thanked God for my pass. I had hoped to pass one of the two parts of the test, but I never expected to pass both parts, on my second try.
Now, I had just one unit to go! Fortified Wines. The section in the book for that unit was small compared to what I had already done! I studied for a few months and went in to take the test.
I realized during the exam that I was not prepared for this test.
Three months later I had my results.
Tasting: Pass
Theory: Fail
You have to pass both parts of the test at the same time, so I had to take the entire test again, even though I passed one part. I gave myself a few more months and went in and took the test again, positive that I would pass this time. I was ready. I knew the material.
Backstory: during my very thorough preparation for this test, I had found some erasable ink pens on Amazon that I loved! As I always do, I checked the reviews before buying them; the reviews were excellent. I bought the pens and used them during my preparation for my next exam. The erasable pens wrote beautifully, and when you made a mistake, you could erase and rewrite. I thought that they would be perfect to use during my last exam. Writing essay questions for two hours with an old school pencil made your hand ache! I bought a brand new package of erasable pens, for my test! I was ready!
I went to Philadelphia and I took my test. It was a breeze. I walked out of that test day relieved to be done with my last WSET exam.
Three months later, I received an email with my results.
Theory: Fail
Tasting: Fail Unclassified
What????? Fail unclassified? That means you did so badly, that the grader stopped grading your test when they got to the point that you couldn’t pass! How was this possible??? How could I be so prepared, and do worse than I did last time? This made no sense. I was devastated.
For the first time, I felt like I was not going to pass Diploma. I had made it this far, and Fortified Wines was going to be the end of the road for me.
I told everyone I was done. I was giving up.
But being so close to finishing, it gnawed at me.
I decided to give it one last try.
I studied for six months.
I went to the island of Madeira, to gain experience tasting all of the grapes and the styles of Madeira, which were impossible to source in Pennsylvania.
I spent the next six months as a flight attendant, only going to Madrid for work, and only drinking sherry. I became proficient at writing tasting notes for all of the styles of sherry.
I took an online class, with an expert coach in London, Jim Gore. His class gave me tips on writing essay answers and writing excellent tasting notes. His class helped give me the confidence that I needed, to give this test one more try.
Two days before taking my test, I was standing in the kitchen heating up some bread for our Sunday lunch with my now, adult children. A thought came to me. Could erasable pens be heat sensitive? I asked my science nerd son, standing next to me in the kitchen, if it was possible that erasable pens could be sensitive to heat. He said, “The oven is hot, write on a piece of paper and put it in there and see.” I got out one of the erasable pens from my tote bag, (I had a brand new pack of pens packed and ready to go for my test) and I scribbled all over a piece of white computer paper. My son opened the oven door and got the paper close to the oven and the ink disappeared, entirely. All you could see was the depression left on the paper, from the pressure of the scribble, I had made. I scribbled on another paper and put it on the dash of my car. I went into the house for a few minutes, and I came right back out. The paper was blank.
I finally had my answer. This is why I failed the test the last time I took it! It was the erasable pens.
You see…PhillyWine sends the tests by air, to London. A truck then, takes the tests to the WSET Offices in London, to be graded. I took my test in June, when it was hot. There’s no doubt in my mind, that my writing had disappeared, at some point, during the travels that my test booklet took, to London.
I ran to my computer to look at the reviews on Amazon, to see if anyone else had a similar story. Now, as opposed to last time I checked, there were numerous questions from people, frantically asking the manufacturer how to get their writing back on their papers. The response from the manufacturer was, you can’t get it back. There were stories of lawyers, nurses, medical students, all who had used these pens to write their notes, left them in their cars for a few hours, to come back to blank pages.
The third time was the charm. I breezed through the test. I passed with Merit (when you retest, they won’t allow you to receive Distinction, or I’m positive I would have scored a Pass with Distinction the third time!!!)
This may sound crazy, but looking back, I’m actually happy that I had to take the fortified wine test three times! Through that struggle, I have fallen in love with this style of wine! I consider myself an expert, when teaching this section of my classes, which I wouldn’t have been the case, had I passed the first or second time taking the test! I truly believe that everything happens for a reason! My struggles were to make me an expert on fortified wines. The fortified wine section of the WSET curriculum is now my favorite section to teach!
Today, I am a WSET certified instructor, teaching all levels of WSET classes in Lancaster, Harrisburg and York, Pennsylvania. If you live in amish country, like I do, you no longer have travel to a big city or take online wine classes, like I had to! And plus, now that I’m an instructor and have my own classes, I get to hang out with Wino’s, just like me, every week! I must tell you…these classes ARE much more fun in person!
The moral to my very long wine journey story is…don’t EVER give up on your dreams! And don’t ever use erasable pen!!!!
Cheers!
Lisa