The exams went as expected – I didn’t pass. This isn’t a surprise, and I’m not upset about it. Since you have to pass all three papers to get through, I knew I hadn’t done it as soon as I put my glass down at the end of paper three back in June.

The nice surprise was that I passed the other two papers, and even got an A on one of them! While I can’t carry these over and will have to resit all three, this is an enormous source of confidence.

In the exhausted, wrung-out state I found myself in this June, I decided to take a year out from my studies. But coming so painfully close this year has made me think differently. Three months of perspective including two blissful weeks in Tuscany have worked their magic, and I am ready to go again.

To that end, I am well and truly back in the land of the mini bottles. Whenever we open a bottle of wine at work (and this is a very frequent occurrence), I siphon 50ml into a mini glass bottle. If filled to the very top and stored in the fridge, these can last for around a week. This allows me to regularly exercise my tasting muscles, comparing the wines we’ve tasted in the office with similar bottles from my collection at home.

This also means that my Coravin is getting a workout. I’ve written about this magic machine before. A fine needle goes through the cork of the bottle, and the Coravin manages to extract wine while simultaneously pushing the protective argon in its place. The cork then expands, closing the hole made by the needle and keeping the wine fresh for weeks or even months. Using this means that I can have a huge number of bottles ‘open’ at home, saving me a lot of money.

I’m feeling different this time around – calmer. I know what I’m doing. Let’s hope that my plan pays off.