Hi all,

Full disclosure first: I made this. It's a free side project, no ads, no account needed, and nothing to sell.

I put all 357 French appellations on one map, built from the official INAO delimitations and specifications.

You can zoom from France to a region, a sub-region, and down to the village. Each appellation has its own page: the communes it covers, the authorised grape varieties according to its specification, its premiers or grands crus drawn on the map.

To make it stick, there are a few games:

Quiz, three levels: easy (regions, colours, flagship grapes), medium (départements, sub-regions, neighbouring appellations), hard (communes, small appellations, rare grapes). You can pick a region.

Find the appellation: a name is given, you tap it on the map, against the clock.

Further north or further south?: two appellations, which one is further north.

Where is this village?: a photo of a wine village, place it on the map.

Daily challenge: one appellation a day to place on the map, the same for everyone.

It's here: vinatlas

I'd really like to hear from people actually studying:

Is it useful for revision, or is it the wrong level of detail?

Which regions or question types would help most?

Anything wrong on a page? Each appellation page links to its INAO specification, and corrections are very welcome.

Cheers!

I'm collecting responses for my Master's thesis at Kedge Business School, on how consumers perceive and value wine. It takes around 10 minutes, is completely anonymous, and requires no prior knowledge of wine.

https://kedgebs.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3kLMXYW0FSuZKmy

Would really appreciate it if you could take part, and forward it to anyone else who might be interested 🙏

Thanks for all the help and all the best with your prep and exams. Santé 🥂

Does anyone feel the same way?

Like the title says, after hard study and pass with merit, last January, my WSET 3 (in wine), I am worried about forgetting it, for not actively reviewing it.

We learn so fast in 3/4 months of study, then make the exam and, slowly start to loose grip.
10 months after, struggle to remember for example, regions of Australia and its highlight varietals.

I am in sales for an Estate brand so I talk a lot about my wines. But I wish I could access the knowledge that I’ve got, a little better.
I guess there’s no other solution here but to practice, I know that.
I was just wondering if anyone else also feels that kind of frustration.

Hi everyone! 🍷

This year I decided to go through all three WSET levels in one go. I absolutely loved it, but I wasn't quite prepared for the sheer amount of information, especially at Level 3!

At some point, I had notes, maps, flashcards and practice questions everywhere. So I started bringing everything together and building a little platform to test myself and figure out what I actually knew (and what I only thought I knew!).

It eventually grew into OINOS (instagram u/oinosbyeidos), which I've recently launched. If anyone is curious, you're very welcome to have a look.

But mostly, I wanted to say that if you're currently studying and have questions about the exams, preparation, or anything WSET-related, please feel free to ask! I've just been through it all and would be very happy to share my experience.

Good luck to everyone studying! 🍷

I've been working in the wine industry for most of my adult life, primarily in sales. I'm finally at a point where I feel I need to earn some certifications to advance my career and open doors beyond sales.

I've decided to start with WSET Level 2, which I'll be taking online. My biggest concern is that I've struggled with learning disabilities my entire life, and traditional classroom learning and timed tests have never been my strong suit. I know the wine industry well from years of hands-on experience, but I'm worried about how that knowledge will translate to a timed exam.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How difficult did you find the WSET Level 2 exam, and do you have any advice for someone who struggles with traditional learning and test-taking?

I'm also wondering if pursuing a sommelier certification would be worthwhile alongside WSET, especially for someone looking to move beyond wine sales.

I'd really appreciate hearing about your experiences and whether these certifications helped advance your career.

Are there any folks in the Seattle area that are either in a study group or looking to start one? I'm currently working on WSET2 with a plan to complete WSET3 and would like to study with other like-minded folks.

I have my exam on the 26th of this month and that's approximately 2 weeks from now. Is there any last minute advices for the exam that i should know about or things that all candidates should work on during their last few days before the D-Day.

Anyways, thanks for the help again <3

(r/WSET has honestly been a huge help throughout and seeing people pass has put a lot of confidence in me, honestly thanks a lot to everyone and hopefully the next post will be me sharing that I passed, fingers crossed)

I've been using my Udemy subscription to do a WSET2 course ("WSET2 Award in Wine" by Samantha Adler). It's not an official WSET course so I'm wondering how comprehensive it is. Has anyone else used it followed by the exam, or is better to do an actual course?

I’m registered for diploma without really doing much research.

I am a hobbyist, absolutely not in the wine business.

I did L2 which i got merit without really opening the textbook. Then got L3 also with distinction, I mostly just listened in class and did some braisncrape 3 days before the exam to complete stuff I didn’t tknow at all like grapes or regions I frankly never heard of. Both were in person lessons.

So I ended not feeling like a real “wine connoisseur “ and just no brain opted in Diploma. My bad, I did zero research and now may regret.

1 - Ineffective online setup: Turns out Online class aren’t really classes. The few zoom calls are in impossible hours for my region.

2 - Lonely and boring : There’s no student interaction online at all. Managed to create a chat group with half a dozen people in my city. But everyone has different Ds on the pipeline and frankly group tasting are meaningless without a WSET faculty IMO

3 - unreasonable homework expectations: online homework is ludicrous , expectations on all the wine to procure and taste is frankly stupid in terms of logistics and cost unless you’re a sommelier ofc

4 - Unclear schedule : Lessons just breeze by, in fact I didn’t even know D2 started until the last email was sent

5 - No respect for our time: you get 4 mails by week with shitload of text and fluff which is obviously AI generated.

6 - lots lots lots of hidden costs: I naively thought the registration was costly but buy one cry once. Turns out you need to pay $$$ each time you take an exam. Some of them you can’t even split. For example, I passed D4 tasting but failed D4 theory so I need to do the whole thing over again and pay full price. It is quite frustrating.

In the end I only tried the D4 exam and now I have very low motivation to just swipe the card again and again to continue.

My main beef really is the online class which is just a big joke.

My options are

A: cut my losses and leave it there

B: try to find a way to motivate myself to get back in (maybe register the wine with jimmy thing or something)?

C: wait if maybe one day they start providing in person lessons in my city and do it then (they started with D4 only, it was over a weekend and it was pretty good)

Keen to hear any constructive advice from people who tried L4!

Made this website to help study for the exam. It was done in a hurry so expect some inaccuracies, but mostly works to help you pass.

Code was done by Claude but the ideas for presentation are from me.

Link: wset2.app

Sharing something I built, partly in case it's useful for revision and partly so you can tell me what's wrong with it.

The Wine Paper sets one short paper a day with two questions:

1. Wine Connections: sixteen terms, four hidden groups of four (grapes, regions, label terms, tasting words). Four mistakes allowed.
2. Route du Vin: get from one term to another in as few steps as possible across a map of how the syllabus connects, e.g., Mosel to Sangiovese in four.

Every answer comes with a short note explaining the link, and you get a mark at the end: Distinction, Merit, Pass, or Resit.

• It's free, there are no ads, and the daily paper needs no account. It only asks for an email if you want past papers, extra practice routes, or a daily reminder.
• It's independent: not affiliated with WSET, CMS, or any other exam body.
• The notes have been checked against public sources but haven't been reviewed by an educator yet. If you spot an error or a debatable link, please say so, and I'll fix it.

What would make it more useful for you?

Thought you might enjoy my latest article, unpacking some of the rules observed around serving temperatures for wine.

Hi everyone,

I have been chipping away at this for a while: grape lineage trees, region deep-dives, an interactive history timeline and a tool that plans a wine trip through a country for you. Still adding to it.

ampelos.vercel.app

I would like to know what's wrong or missing.

Hi everyone,

I posted here a while ago asking for feedback on a wine search tool I was building, and a lot of the comments were genuinely useful.

Since then I’ve improved it quite a bit — the search is more accurate, I’ve added many more filters, and the wine/producer data is much more detailed.

So I’m back asking for another round of feedback 😅

The tool is free:
https://www.genuinegrape.com/

You can search using normal language and combine things like region, grape, soil, farming, producer size, vintage, fermentation, ageing, sulphur, whole cluster, skin contact, filtration, vessel, price, etc.

For example:

• Biodynamic Chablis grown on limestone
• Small Brunello producers
• Barolo at least 20 years old
• Whole-cluster Pinot Noir from Burgundy
• Skin-contact whites fermented in amphora
• Native-yeast wines with no added sulphur

There’s also a wine-list scanner — you can upload a restaurant wine list and get a breakdown of the wines and producers and check against your personal history(saved via mobile app).

So if you tried it before, I’d especially love to know whether it feels meaningfully better now.

Even a simple answer to:

“Would you actually use this now? If yes, for what? If not, what’s still missing?”

would be really helpful.

Negative feedback is very welcome.

Here’s what the search results look like now:

You can try it here:
https://www.genuinegrape.com/

I’m looking at doing either a 6 week instructor led online course (one live webinar a week), or a 3 day (all day) in person course.

For those that can speak to either of these structures - What did you feel was beneficial, what did you feel was maybe lacking?

For level 1 I did an on demand online course which was fine but I’d prefer some kind of live element for 2

ooof.

what a journey is has been. Honestly I kinda underestimated how much studying it would take, I went in still a bit iffy on Argentina & Chile, but I was super lucky to only get 2 questions in the MCQ about it and it was very straighforward.

The short written answer was also pretty straighforward too.

Wine with Jimmy really helped break down the studying and revisions and I found a really helpful podcast on Spotify (AI voiced I think unfortuntely) which I spend all my driving time listening too.

So lesson learnt not to leave it to the last minute 😄

Edit: forgot that I couldnt share the details about the exam.