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D3: Wines of the World - The Messy Months...Oh, and, I PASSED😁

Writer's picture: Elise VauxElise Vaux

Updated: Jan 12

Well, hello there! Long time, no see, I know, I know.


I want you all to know, that when I began this blog in the Summer of 2023, I had the best of intentions. I wanted to create a space to show my journey through the WSET Diploma, the good, the bad and the ugly. During my last post, I was so excited to share with you all that I had passed my D6: Thesis with Merit, however, I was already waist deep in my D3: Wines of the World studies. For the majority of candidates, D3 is The Beast, the Cyclops, the Cerberus guarding the gates of the WSET Diploma. It is worth 50% of the weight of the certification. The content reflects the name of the course, encompassing wine regions all over the globe, large and small. The textbook is around 700 pages and the passing rate is usually as high as coin flip, 50%. All in all, it took me 10 intense, all-encompassing months to prepare for D3. Guys, I have a Masters degree. I literally ACED grade school. But this course, in particular, took it out of me. Long story short, there was no way I could maintain full time employment, study for this exam and run a blog and all corresponding social media accounts. As much as I wanted to share the experience with you in real time, some days, the basics were almost unachievable. However...and pardon me as I bury the lead, but as it turned out, I was on the winning side of the coin flip. I passed D3 on my first try and as of August of 2024, I'm officially a WSET Diploma!


Since you guys missed literally all of the chaos, I thought I would at least show you in retrospect what the D3 journey looked like for me, The Messy, The Messiest and The Exhilaration when all the hard work finally paid off.



When I began studying for D3 in July 2024, I did my best to stick with a self prescribed regime, 1 hour of theory a day and two tastings a week. All of this is great in theory. You want as much repetition of the facts as possible and then try to fortify this information with tastings corresponding to what you've been reading in the textbook. I think it's important to note here that I was lucky enough to have a partner in crime throughout my Diploma journey, the one and the only Blair Zachariasen. Although the combination of our occupations gave us tremendous access to wine, there were still several wines that had the potential to show up on our exam that were not readily available. For this reason, I was frequently traveling to and from Chicago going to different educational forums and trade tastings, specifically for Portuguese, Loire and Greek wines. I would encourage any WSET 3 and Diploma students to take advantage of these resources. There are countless wines in this world that aren't widely exported or hard to gain access to and I found these events critical to filling in these gaps. You might be losing your mind after months of obsessive study, but make the time! It could save your ass...more on that later.




The two months leading up to the exam were brutal. I'm not embarrassed to admit, I was becoming unhinged. D3 is the hardest test to pass, and after 2 and a half years of non stop preparation, my brain was shutting down. I had read all 700 pages of that text book at least 5-6 times between the initial readings and the months spent dissecting it with a fine tooth comb. Every theory exam is worth 100 points and even writing the smallest detail can be the difference between passing and failing. These can include climatic conditions (weather, altitude, aspect, rainfall, soil type, rootstocks, etc) to Winemaking (whole bunch fermentation vs stemless, skin maceration times, malolactic conversion, maturation techniques), it's endless. My brain was done and studying felt like trying to ring water from a dry sponge. Any free hours I had where I wasn't studying, I was anxiously pacing around my house, punishing myself for my lack of motivation. Those last weeks, Blair and I began drinking margheritas and running digital flash cards so we could stop reading the text book on loop. I ate pasta for breakfast for two weeks straight. I barely slept. By the time Blair and I boarded our flight to Chicago for our 2 day exam, I was a shell of a person. At that point, passing or failing didn’t matter so much anymore. After two and a half years of non-stop studying, the only thing I truly wanted was freedom.




So...as a rule of thumb, the WSET does nothing quickly, especially grading exams. From the moment you drop your pencil and hand in your test, it will take them about 12 weeks to return your grade. I took my exam in mid May, so that meant I would at least have the summer off as I awaited my results. When Blair and I returned to Iowa, we both went through an extended "exam hangover," that is to say, several weeks of brain fog and nights of 12 hours of sleep or more. It was mid June before my normal energy level returned.


The summer came and went as I basked in this extended study break, however, reality began to set in as Results Day loomed the second week of August. The weekend before exams were scheduled to come out, I decided to treat my damn self, in preparation for the following weekend would I would likely have to begin studying once again for my resit. Perhaps I wasn't giving myself a enough credit here, but the inevitable disappointment of failure was something I felt I had to prepare myself for. Friday night, I went out for a coworkers going away party and stayed out to the wee hours of the morning. Saturday, I sipped on Vodka Lemonades poolside with my sister and my niece and Sunday I went out for some day drinking with a friends for mimosas and margheritas. I cherished the last few days of freedom as I anxiously started monitoring my inbox. Wednesday morning that week, I was getting ready for work when a notification popped up on my phone from my personal Gmail account...my throat dropped to my stomach. I was one click away from from The Vista of the WSET. I opened up the email and scanned it quickly to brace myself for the disappointment, when I saw in bold letters, that I had passed BOTH parts of my exam. I literally fell to my knees in disbelief. I laid there on my back laughing hysterically as tears ran down my cheeks. I was on the right side of the coin flip. I PASSED. I would never had to pick up that textbook again. I could delete the flashcards app from my phone. I would not have to spend hundreds of dollars on a resit. In a click of a button, I had joined the WSET Diploma club of 12,500 wine professionals world wide. I became the first person in my whole company, a well known wholesaler, to attempt and pass the WSET Diploma. I truly climbed a mountain to a place no one at my current employer had been before. I've never felt more proud of anything in my career!


Despite all the hardships, the isolation, the emotional torment and sacrifice, throughout this process, I dug deeper to reservoirs of mental fortitude, strength and resilience than I ever knew I had. Every day I proved to myself that I could and I would keep going. I wasn't a quitter. The Vista, in the end, was worth all the hassle. So, for all of you in the beginning, middle or end of this journey...you're almost there. One foot in front of the other. Winners are made in the darkness, in places with the most pain and the most self doubt. YES YOU CAN!


I'm here for you...until next week, Wineologists!






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