{"id":8630,"date":"2021-04-03T10:20:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T09:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/?p=8630"},"modified":"2022-03-29T15:10:02","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T14:10:02","slug":"the-life-of-an-mw-student-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/the-life-of-an-mw-student-six\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life of an MW Student &#8211; Six"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"l-section wpb_row height_medium\"><div class=\"l-section-h i-cf\"><div class=\"g-cols vc_row via_flex valign_top type_default stacking_default\"><div class=\"vc_col-sm-12 wpb_column vc_column_container\"><div class=\"vc_column-inner\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><time class=\"w-post-elm post_date entry-date published\" datetime=\"2021-04-03T10:20:38+01:00\" title=\"3 April 2021 at 10:20:38 Europe\/London\" itemprop=\"datePublished\">5 years ago<\/time><div class=\"w-separator size_small\"><\/div><div class=\"wpb_text_column\"><div class=\"wpb_wrapper\"><h1>THE LIFE OF AN MW STUDENT \u2013 SIX<\/h1>\n<p>What is the best thing to do after a long day of blind tasting? Anyone who works in the wine trade will tell you that the correct answer to this question is \u2018have a pint of lager.\u2019 And that is what we, a group of fifty or so MW students, did in the evening after our first day of classes at the Austrian Wine Academy. Repeatedly.<\/p>\n<p>So, when I woke up the next morning to a 6:00 alarm, I cannot say I felt entirely enthusiastic about the day\u2019s activities. There\u2019s nothing quite like being faced with a line up of twelve glasses of wine when you\u2019re feeling a little \u2018worse for wear\u2019. No excuses, though! We would all soon get used to the 8:30am tasting exams which happened every day that week<\/p>\n<p>As I am now something of a veteran of these blind tasting exams, I thought I\u2019d offer some insight into how you go about tackling one.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing I do when the clock starts (2 hours and 15 minutes) is to draw a grid on some scrap paper. This grid has spaces for all the important elements of a wine such as acidity, alcohol, flavours and aromas. The purpose of the grid is to make sure that I don\u2019t forget to record any of this vital information. The next thing I do is to draw a picture of a globe. This is so I don\u2019t forget that any countries exist. It may sound mad, but there is so much to concentrate on during these exams that I have been known to forget entirely about the whole of, say, South America or Spain. Finally, I write the number of each wine on the base of the glass using a chalk marker. There\u2019s nothing more stressful than worrying you\u2019ve mixed two wines up!<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>That done, it\u2019s time to look at the question paper. I divide the wines into mini-flights depending on how the questions are organised, and then stick my nose in each of them and jot down some initial observations. This also helps to determine whether any of the wines may be particularly sweet, and thus should be left until the end.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>If I\u2019m particularly confident about any of the wines in the line-up, those will be the questions I\u2019ll attempt first. Writing furiously, I\u2019ll consult the detailed notes I have now made, and combine all the information I have about the wines into a convincing argument for a particular origin, grape variety, or vintage. Some questions won\u2019t ask any of this and instead ask you to decipher how the wine has been made or who might drink it or sell it (that\u2019s when you know you\u2019ve got something weird!).<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>As an MW student you get used to failing these exams. It\u2019s only now, eighteen months in, that I have started getting close to passing them. I\u2019m not alone in this, I might add! It looks like there\u2019s a reason why only 500 or so people have ever done it.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><div class=\"w-separator size_small\"><\/div><div class=\"w-post-elm post_author vcard author color_link_inherit with_ava avapos_top\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/author\/owcemily\/\" class=\"fn\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><div class=\"post-author-ava\" style=\"font-size:96px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"96\" height=\"96\" src=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-96x96.jpg\" class=\"avatar avatar-96 photo\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-96x96.jpg 96w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-350x350.jpg 350w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-24x24.jpg 24w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-48x48.jpg 48w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n.jpg 640w, https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/116377708_608815716686001_1898708497719331632_n-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 96px) 100vw, 96px\" \/><\/div><\/a><div class=\"post-author-meta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/author\/owcemily\/\" class=\"post-author-name fn\">Emily Silva<\/a><div class=\"post-author-info\">Emily is Head of Retail and Marketing at The Oxford Wine Company. She is also a stage two student on the Master of Wine Programme.<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 years agoTHE LIFE OF AN MW STUDENT \u2013 SIX What is the best thing to do after a long day of blind tasting? Anyone who works in the wine...","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[202,215,216,217,213],"class_list":["post-8630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oxford_wine_blog","tag-emilysilva","tag-mwstudent","tag-mwstudy","tag-wineeducation","tag-winestudy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Life of an MW Student - Six - Oxford Wine Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/the-life-of-an-mw-student-six\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Life of an MW Student - Six - Oxford Wine Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/the-life-of-an-mw-student-six\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Oxford Wine Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theoxfordwinecompany\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-03T09:20:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-29T14:10:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Emily Silva\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TheOxfordWineCo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TheOxfordWineCo\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Emily Silva\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/the-life-of-an-mw-student-six\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/the-life-of-an-mw-student-six\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Emily Silva\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oxfordwine.co.uk\/owc\/#\/schema\/person\/0218c55a34881e04418f0ddf572efa32\"},\"headline\":\"The Life of an MW Student &#8211; 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