Nurse the Hate: The Last WSET Diploma Exam?

I am closing in fast on what is my last test for the coveted WSET Diploma and corresponding “scepter of wine”.  Well, I’m not exactly sure if I am going to receive a scepter.  I haven’t read any of the materials associated with what happens if you pass all these exams.  I hope something happens.  I am certain that I could swagger around in the UK with their wine trade looking upon me thinking “that bloke knows about the soil content of Conegliano Valdobbiadene”.  I could probably even land a job over there if I was able to conceal the fact that my personality runs counter to most of what is considered acceptable behavior in the UK.  Of course, if I don’t have a scepter to wave around I am not sure how any of my new potential mates would know about it.

In the United States it is less clear what happens.  When people find out I have an outsized knowledge of wine, I have the exact same conversation.  It goes like this…  “So are you almost a somah… sommie…  summer…?”  A sommelier?  “Yeah!  That’s it!  A sommelier!”  No, that’s a different thing.  That implies that you know about service.  I’m not going to become a waiter at this point, so I decided to get this WSET thing instead.  “So… what do you do with it?  Could you be a sommelier?”

I have had this conversation so many times, I now do this.   “So are you almost a somah… sommie…  summer…?”  A sommelier?  “Yeah!  That’s it!  A sommelier!”  Yes.  Yes, I am.  (It’s just easier and makes everyone more comfortable.)

The endgame is upon me.  I have one more exam to pass.  I am concerned that I may have brain damage because I can’t seem to remember any Italian grape names or DOC names.  I have good recall of the French material and can wax on poetically about the barrel aging program of Krug along with the best of them.  Unfortunately for me I am required to also remember such material as lambrusco grassparossa from Lambrusco Grassparossa di Castelvetro.  That’s a real mouthful for a wine that it’s unlikely I will ever drink again by choice in another few days.  I don’t know when the last time you were at a bar and heard someone lean over to the bartender and say, “Hey, you have any traditional method Lambrusco Salamino de Santa Croce by the glass?  If not, I’ll take a Bud Light.”.

It’s a brutal task this exam.  They love to jam you up on these exams with at least one trivial question out of the three essays.  For example, there’s a decent chance I could be asked about a Clairette de Die, which is a sparkling muscat blanc a’ petits grains (75%) blended with clairette (25%).  The correct answer on the exam is “a sweet white sparkling wine that no normal consumer in the United States will ever come in contact with as it is impossible to sell at retail because it is A) sweet and B) unpronounceable to most people as they can’t say the word “sommelier” much less “clairette de Die”.  It’s like going in for a rock n’ roll exam and instead of them asking about The Rolling Stones “Exile On Main Street” they ask you about alternate mixes of "Voodoo Lounge”.

I'm almost out of gas.  I’ve come so far, I can’t give up now.  I need to drag myself across this finish line.  I had hoped I was going to feel this victorious sense of accomplishment, but like most things, I feel like a fraud.  There are upsides.  I should be confident I can ruin wine for anyone at this point.  “So, what are you drinking?  Oh really?  Let me tell you why that’s not as good as a dozen other things!”  Yet I feel like I learned just enough to realize how much I don’t know.  It's almost worse knowing that now I might have to keep going.  It’s almost better to be one of those expense account lawyer types that are self assured in their swinging dick overpriced big Napa cabernets they knock back at obscene prices at Morton’s.  Now I’m just a guy that realizes it is impossible to know it all about one region, much less all of them.  This damn thing is humbling.

I feel much less confident on this exam than I have for any of the previous ones.  I have also made a major error and not booked myself into my Jack Kerouac “On The Road” manuscript roll wallpaper hotel room with the screaming homeless people just outside the window as has been my custom.  The unmistakable odor of urine by the Chinese Gate has always set my palate before walking over to the Holiday Inn to break down and identify obscure wines.  I may have to wet my hotel bed the night before just to set the table for success.  Granted, I will need to use the automatic check out so as to not have to explain why the mattress is soaked in urine, but that's why you enter credit card reward programs, right?  

I just have to shove about a month's worth of knowledge into my head in the next few days.  I've done it before.  Almost every single college class I ever took I spent casually flipping through the material until about three days before D-Day.  I learned 400 years of European history in three days thanks to rainy weather and some speed I found in a discarded bottle in the backyard.  I pulled that off.  Why not this?  There's no sense in changing the game plan now.  It's not like I have time to fly into Asti and wander around a massive spumante plant asking questions that get answered back in machine gun Italian.  I'm all in.  It's almost go time...