Nurse the Hate: Yet Another Wine Exam

I spent a whirlwind day in Boston taking the WSET Diploma Unit 6 exam.  Again.  I felt like I knew this material well the last time I flamed out on this test.  That is nothing compared to now.  I have since read three books on sherry.  I have read two books on Madeira.  Four books on port.  I am likely the United States Midwestern Expert on fortified wines.  This is sort of like being the Midwestern Expert on the recorded discography of The Flamin’ Groovies.  It’s something that sounds impressive until you realize it’s essentially worthless information.  If I sat in a room listening to the Flamin’ Groovies “Teenage Head” record while drinking a 15-year aged Bual Madeira, I would likely burst into flames from the sheer self-indulgence.

I started in the morning by sitting in an airline seat where a furry Arab dude kicked and nudged the back of my seat the entire 90-minute flight.  It was a 7am.  I got up at 5a.  I went to sleep at 2a.  I was in no mood to get knocked around my seat by some kid with an enormous pillow that couldn’t wrap his arms around the idea of publicly shared spaces.  A young man with a beard should never carry a pillow onto a plane.  I feel strongly about this.  If you feel you need a pillow to endure a 90-minute flight, you should also be required to shave off your beard and suck on a pacifier.  Even now I want to slap him like Marlon Brando in The Godfather and scream out “ACT LIKE A MAN!!!”.   

I took an Uber from the airport with a guy from Sicily driving me to the hotel where the exam was given.  His English was a little dodgy.  He complained about the cold weather.  I asked him why he moved to Boston.  He had an Uncle that lived there so it was a place to live in America.  He had moved into the house with his wife and their four-year-old son.  She was from Brazil.  They had somehow met on the internet.  I couldn’t figure out how a Sicilian guy meets a Brazilian woman online.  He told me with a smile on his face but I couldn't understand through his accent.  At least I think that’s what he said.  I know this.  When she gets angry at him she yells at him in Portuguese.  I got that part.  He can’t understand Portuguese, so it all rolls off his back.  “She make me…  happy.  She come to America for me.  She do have temper though…  Hot blooded…”  He smiled.  He dropped me off at the utilitarian Crowne Plaza Suites in Newton MA.    

I had a few hours to kill.  I sat in the characterless hotel bar/restaurant with sherry, port and Madeira books arranged in front of me.  These types of hotel restaurants must come shipped in some type of kit.  They are all the same.  Red leather high backed chairs.  Tastefully framed sports photos of local sports celebrities are on the walls, in this case the "Boston option" of Bird, Russell, Cousy, and Brady.  Six big screens showing off hours sports channels and dueling cable news.  I knew what would be on the lunch menu before I even opened it.  Cobb salad, burgers, turkey sandwich, chicken wrap.  My plump waitress was named Tammy.  She looked like almost every Tammy I have ever met.  She asked why I had all the books with the wonder of someone that had not opened a book since the last days of high school.  Her genuinely warm smile and oddly vacant eyes stared at me as she waited for a response.

It is almost impossible to explain to someone an advanced wine certification that isn't a sommelier type title.  By the time I start explaining it, I realize that no one really cares.  I usually now just say "yes, it's a sommelier exam" much like I used to say "yes, like The Rolling Stones" when elderly relatives would ask if my band sounded like that.  Most people don't really want answers to questions.  They just want to keep the conversation moving comfortably.  I told Tammy it was a sommelier exam.  She was pleased by that answer and gave me iced tea.

I was concerned about the test.  I have failed this exam before despite having a firm grasp of the material.  Let's not kid ourselves.  No one drinks these wines.  These are obscure wines that most normal human beings don’t even know exist.  There is more Bud Light spilled in most NFL Stadiums than the combined sales of port, sherry and Madeira.  I looked it up.  All of Madeira made 3.97 million liters of wine last year.  Bud Light alone brewed 2.7 billion liters of beer.  I currently have 15 open bottles of these fortified wines at my home.  There is no (zero) chance of getting anyone I know to come over and help drink these before they fade.  Sure, the madeiras might outlast me.  The others?  No one is swinging by for a Palo Cortado sherry.  I'm either going to have to pour them out or go on a solitary bender not seen since the 1935 English Navy.  "Blimey sir!  He's all hopped up on port he is!"

I waited for the exam.  I prepared by listening to Iggy and the Stooges "Raw Power".  I talked to a Somm from Halifax as Iggy yelled in the earbud still in my left ear.  "Well, I tried to prepare by tasting various amontillados and...". Meanwhile Iggy is snarling "gimme danger... little stranger...". I had a nervous energy which made my right leg hammer up and down.  I felt like I knew the material.  I told myself it would be OK.  Still, plenty could go wrong with these tests.  They could ask any kind of crazy shit.  This is all random.  I could literally run a major port shipping firm and still get dealt a question about an obscure French vin du natural like a Rivesalte that would sink me.   Motherfucker.  I cranked through Husker Du’s “Zen Arcade” to get my mind right.

I’d tell you the questions on the exam, but I know you don’t care.  They wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway.  Unless you are a WSET Diploma student looking for an edge.  If that’s the case, then I salute you.  I was warned by the proctor that if I revealed anything about the exam, some humorless Brit named Roger would come to my house and beat me with a baton.  They are fairly humorless over there, so I believe them.  There were three theory questions.  Two of them were expected.  One was a curveball.  I knew it though.  My pen frantically barfed out all I knew about obscure topics with the tiny ten minute per question allotment.  There isn’t enough time to review what you have written, so I’m not sure if I answered effectively.  I could have regurgitated a bunch of shit talk.  I’m not sure.  It all happened pretty fast.

The tasting was of three wines blind.  My mind looked at them and decided what they were before I even smelled them.  Big mistake.  The most difficult part of blind tasting is to wipe your mind clean and make no judgements until you have compiled sensory data.  To put it bluntly, I have totally fucking fucked myself by letting my brain get in front of smelling and tasting the wine.  It’s how I failed the first time.  I was thinking “OK, this is so easy!  That’s a this, that one is a that, and clearly the last one is what I think it is!”.  Next thing you know you are looking for the evidence of the conclusion you have erroneously drawn.  “OK, I know who committed this crime.  Now, let’s gather only evidence that supports our arrest!”.  

I stopped for a moment.  I let the Stooges record pop into my head.  I looked down and re-evaluated the wines with a blank head.  I realized a huge mistake I had made on a conclusion and rapidly righted the ship.  You know how they tell you to always go with your gut?  That would have been a big mistake.  My gut was wrong.  It has probably been wrong on a great number of things.  I should likely go back and fix every mistake I have ever made, but who has the time.  “Time’s up!”  What?  Already?  Fuck.  I packed my test into my little envelope and turned it in.  I knew the material.  Did I pass?  Who the hell knows?  I walked out and talked about the test with the other various shell shocked students.

I killed a few hours in Boston drinking and eating a lobster roll.  I went back to the airport.  I sat in the United Club.  I ordered a half bottle of champagne.  Why not, I deserve it dammit!  I felt like female pharmaceutical rep celebrating a sale.  All I needed was my Gal Pals.  The slightly annoyed bartender opened the champagne for me and got back to wiping down his area.  I leaned my elbow on my stack of books.  I was tired.  I sat at the bar as four different people came up and ordered wine.  It's not a good experience to be studying wine to this depth and come in contact with normal people.  Nobody cares what they are drinking.  “Gimme a red”.  “Ummm…  I will have a glass of white wine.”  I sipped at my champagne flush with the knowledge necessary to discuss oxidated sherry styles like palo cortado blends in either a dry or in a pale cream style.  I have flown across the country to sit in a room for an hour and try to defend the idea that I have just enough knowledge of viticultural techniques in an obscure area of Portugal that produce a wine that almost no one drinks.  You want to talk about the aging regimen of Colheita style port?  No?  You just want a white wine and want me to shut up?  OK. 

I drank my wine and got on the plane.  I got home late.  I sat down on the couch and drank a port.  Why not.  I have 15 bottles of it.  I have no idea if I passed and will be forced to do this again.