It was the most exhausting of times. In an act of discipline (or mere gluttony for punishment), I succeeded in completing two exams in two cities over the course of two days.

As alluded to previously, I have been preparing for the Unit 6/Fortified Wines exam for the WSET Diploma of Wine & Spirits, this fall. While I still have two papers to write, this was the last of my exams for that credential.

A very busy season (and personal issues) kept me from the study schedule I had envisioned. However, I managed to really buckle down in the last week. Consequently, I arrived at the International Wine Center feeling confident. This confidence remained throughout the one-hour exam, which included a blind tasting of three wines and a short-answer essay on Montilla-Moriles, Port grape varieties and oxidation. While I will not receive my score until around January, I felt reasonably sure that I had passed the exam.

Pausing only for a few minutes to reunite with a classmate who has since moved to Napa, I headed to Penn Station to wait for my train. The two-hour wait did not go wasted as I used the time to review all of the material I had studied in preparation for the previous units (Light Wines of the World, Viticulture and Vinification). This review continued for the better part of my trip, resulting in five hours of study in total. I arrived in Norwood, MA weary and ready for bed.

Thursday morning, I hastily showered and dressed, heading voer to Martignetti Companies’ offices in plenty of time for the 9:00 AM exam start. I was ready for the Certified Wine Educator (CWE) exam (having successfully completed the Certified Specialist of Wine credential in June 2005). This exam entailed 85 mutiple-choice questions, which were to be completed within an hour. This was followed by an essay (30 minute time limit) with a choice of four topics of which we were to select one. With the information from Wednesday’s exam still fresh in my mind, I was very lucky to find one of the topics involved Port. Afterward, candidates had to identify 8 wines from a list of ten and then match 8 faulted wines with their respective faults.

I left feeling that I had achieved a sufficient score on all parts of the exam, with the exception of the wine identification. Blind tasting has never been my strong suit, so I was not surprised. It will be 8-10 weeks before I receive my results on the CWE, but I suspect that I will be headed to re-take the blind tasting part of the exam sometime in 2008. In the meantime, I have two papers to write and lots of wine to drink. Perhaps, it is the best of times.