I’m preparing to take a WSET Level 3 course. This class has a tasting component to its exam, and you have to use the format and language specified by the WSET’s Systematic Approach to Tasting (“SAT”) in order to get credit.
So I’ve been reviewing the SAT and creating tasting notes in order to learn the format and all the right terms. It gets real old real quick writing out tasting notes over and over so, as a learning exercise, I created a website to do some of the drudge work for me.
The website is tastingnotes.vin, and it’s designed to mimic the Systematic Approach to Tasting handouts that are used in the WSET Level 3 course. The idea is that you can go through the page, select the flavors, aromas, other characteristics you observe in the wine, and it will spit out a full tasting note based on the WSET format that’s ready to be copy-and-pasted into your notes, CellarTracker, or anywhere else.
If this sounds like it might be useful to you, please feel free to check it out. It’s a free tool with no logins and no ads. It’s just a useful tool that I wanted to exist.
If you run into any problems, generate a tasting note that sounds less than fluent, or have any suggestions, please let me know. Enjoy!
Kudos and thank you for sharing the tool I used it last night. I have used the WSET SAT in the past purely as a hobbyist, but the more time passes since I first did, the looser I have become with it. This is a great way to remind me of the various elements including the structure of the tasting notes. I appreciate your efforts!
This would actually be really useful if it had an option to write other aromas/flavors than just the ones listed.
For example, if you’re drinking a bretty red wine, the only “bretty” aroma you have listed is farmyard, and that generates a note under bottle age which is not necessarily the case. (if they give you a 2022 Rhone with some brett and you claim bottle age due to farmyard, you probably won’t score a point for that one )
I believe Charles based the aromas off of the standard card that comes with the book. So it ends up being more general.
@Charles_Perry i just want to say thank you for doing this! I’ve been sure to share it with friends that are studying for advanced and will be using this when I teach clients how to pass this exam. In the matter of an afternoon/evening, you just made many students lives easier!!
I’m glad to hear that you think it will be helpful. I should point out that I haven’t taken the WSET course yet. This just represents my best understanding after reading the book and doing some independent study. So if something looks off, or if a change would make it better, please let me know.
Thanks for this! Writing fully articulated notes is a good habit to stay in, and this will help. If it were possible to add a blank field for our own descriptors, that would be even better (you are not limited to using the descriptors they provide - the graders of the tasting section have common sense discretion on that).
I made a paper template of the WSET level III rubric for myself when I was prepping for the exam. The class I happened to take featured a series of different instructors week to week, some were good teachers, some were interesting people ITB, some both. From the POV of a professional teacher, WSET itself could stand to build out some basic study activities to help people learn the material, e.g. geography quizzes. Staring at maps is not the way to go – I took to using tracing paper. There was basically no formative assessment during class other than the tastings themselves, I don’t know if all WSET affiliated classes operate the same way, but if I had been running the class everyone would have done a practice question at the end of class every week to be returned and reviewed the following week, etc.
Level III is not THAT much material for an experienced amateur (especially if you have wide ranging tastes to begin with) but it is a fair amount to memorize. To quiz myself, I made some blank charts to try and fill in from memory which you are welcome to make copies of for your own use.
Have fun with the class and good luck on the exam!
Thank you for the detailed response and, especially, for the tools you just shared. I plan on taking the WSET 3 this year and will definitely use these to help study.
To me, WSET lvl3 was a joke. I wasn’t planning on dishing out a few thousand €s for a few weeks’ course and hearing stuff I already know.
I paid the exam fee which was something like 120€. I just reviewed the WSET tasting grid so I knew how they wanted my tasting notes; otherwise I went in completely unprepared.
Later on I heard from an acquaintance that the instructor told that only two people passed with distinction and he didn’t know who was the one who got the best score because they weren’t attending the course.
And this was when I had been into wine for 4-5 years. It was very basic stuff throughout, at least for me. The most obscure thing I came across there was Rutherglen Muscat.
)