“Wine brightens the life and thinking of anyone”

— Thomas Jefferson

Fine Vintage, Ltd. is offering WSET’s advanced certification course in Chicago this Spring. Over three weekends, five and a half days of study, we’ll taste nearly 100 wines to prepare you for the rigorous WSET Level 3 exam. You will definitely want to have your WSET Level 2 certification (or have just taken the Level 2 course, even if you don’t yet have your results) so you have a thorough grounding in WSET’s important Structured Approach to Tasting.

This is a serious course, but it’s also an immensely rewarding course. We cover a broad range of material and train you in important skills of deductive reasoning to “connect the dots” about wine production and wine style.

The course begins Saturday, March 29, 2025 and continues every other weekend, ending on Sunday, May 5, 2025 with the final exam. This exam does include a blind tasting of two wines and, because Levels 1 and 2 don’t have a tasting exam, many students fear this tasting. In fact, after evaluating nearly 100 wines with me in class you will have your tasting skills at a very high level. Where you really want the coaching and intensive study Fine Vintage provides is for the four “short answer” questions that make up more than half the total exam score. We give you plenty of homework to study and extensive coaching in class to have you in the best position possible to do well on the exam.

For a further description of what Level 3 entails, please check my course description page here.

If you want to take Level 3, I encourage you to register well in advance - as soon as you register, you’ll receive online versions of the text, workbook and the Level 3 SAT. You definitely want to read these through a couple of times before the first class session - there’s a lot of wine here! To register for Level 3 in Chicago in March and April, 2025, simply click the button below to go straight to the Fine Vintage Chicago course page. Remember, the earlier you register the better for your preparedness. I look forward to seeing you in class!!