How To Write An Award Winning Wine Essay
5 years ago, I submitted an essay after a few too many glasses of Champagne.
As a result, I flew to London to accept a wine award several months later.
Here is proof of my wine award the USA Laithwaites Prize.
The Exam
On December 17, 2016, I sat in a hotel conference room with 11 other wine hopefuls about to take the WSET Level 2 Wine exam.
With our booklets and answers sheets in front of us, we anxiously awaited the proctor’s cue to begin.
The woman to my left was taking a Level 3 exam. She had two glasses in front of her. One red, the other white.
She looked at me out of the corners of her eyes and asked, “Level 2?”
I nodded.
She said, “Stellenbosch produces high-quality Cabernet Sauvignon in South Africa.”
I smiled. “Ha. Did she see me reading my note cards on the L train?”
I looked back at her. “Good luck,” I said.
About 30 minutes later, I was going back through my answers on the multiple choice exam. I had starred two questions that I wasn’t 100% certain on. After review, I went with my gut on both.
As I stood up, I looked around at everyone else scribbling.
I was the first person to turn in either exam.
I walked outside. The cold Chicago air fill my lungs.
“I think I aced it,” I muttered to myself as I walked to meet my then-fiancée-now-wife for a late lunch.
The Results
On Tuesday, January 17, 2017 I received the results of my exam from the program coordinator.
“Hope you had a nice New Years. I am writing to let you know that you passed the WSET level 2 exam. In fact, you passed with Distinction! So congrats on a job well-done.”
To Pass With Distinction means you score 85% or above.
A month removed from the test, the initial high had worn off. But it felt great to know that I did nearly as well as expected.
Back in the real world, I continued to work in the my local wine shop throughout the spring and summer.
At the same time, I was starting to pick up freelance work in the wine world as well. And I even hosted a virtual wine summit with interviews from people I admired most that summer.
Things were humming along.
Over Labor Day weekend, I got married in Vail, Colorado.
Life was grand.
A Note From London
Out of the blue, I received a note from WSET on September 27, 2017.
Reading the email, I found out I was eligible for a wine award. All I needed to do was submit small essay — no more than 500 words — explaining, “How studying the Level 2 Award in Wine & Spirits aided your aspirations in understanding wine and your future in the world of wine.”
The deadline to apply was Wednesday, October 11.
I thought, “Hey, that’s pretty neat. I guess anyone who achieved marks at the Distinction Level got an invite. Maybe I’ll write something.”
Over the next few weeks, I drafted different parts of the essay.
The Submission Process
And on Tuesday, October 10, I put the finishing touches on my essay before heading off to the wine shop for a special Champagne education event at 7:30 p.m.
“I’ll work on this tonight or tomorrow before I send it in,” I said while shutting my laptop.
I’d been working less at the wine shop lately as my freelance work was taking hold. So, I was excited to see my old co-workers.
After the evening’s education, we kept the tasting portion going. We finished a several bottles in the backroom as we cleaned up, and then headed out for night cap.
One drink turned into too many.
Around 1:30 a.m., I thought it best to say goodnight.
As I fit the keys into the door with a surprising amount of precision, I sat down on the sofa before going to bed.
Something was eating at me.
In a state that could be described as silly, I flipped open my laptop and reread the submission guidelines. I thought I had missed something.
Scanning the document, I noticed the following:
The deadline to apply is 9am GMT on Wednesday the 11th of October.
My egotistic American brain assumed Eastern Time.
Damn. Time to use a time converter.
9 a.m. GMT is 4 a.m. CDT.
Double damn.
There was no way I was going to sleep anything off. I had a small window to submit my essay.
With the deadline looming, I also had to scour for my candidate number. I took a guess along with my submission and hoped that someone might take pity on this poor American.
At precisely 2:25 a.m., I submitted my essay.
While I was attempting to sleep off a massive hangover, someone replied back at 5:19 a.m. My essay had been received, and I was made aware of my candidate number.
Bless the Brits.
The Notification
On October, 25 2017, I received an email with the subject line:
Confidential: WSET — The Laithwaites Prize
I opened it to discover that I won, and I was invited to attend the ceremony on January 22, 2018 in London.
I accepted the invitation, and my wife and I took the opportunity to go to London as our honeymoon.
In London’s Guildhall, my wife and I stood next to each other in a room full of strangers. I held my certificate in my hand and the adoring admiration of my wife.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Brian, congratulations. I’m Greg from Laithwaites. It’s great to meet you.”
“Thanks for this,” I said holding up the certificate. “It’s nice to meet you too.”
“I have to say, I read a lot of essays. Yours was by far my favorite. I really enjoyed it.”
“Well, thank you so much. That’s nice to hear.”
We got to know each other over meandering conversation. Talk finally circled back to the award.
Greg asked, “Did you meet any of the other winners from the UK or Australia?”
“No, I didn’t have a chance.”
“That’s too bad seeing as you all did so well.”
“But plenty of people ‘Passed with Distinction,’” I said.
“True. However, you three and handful of others had the only perfect scores.”
“Perfect? Really? I had no idea.”
Greg and I chuckled and soon parted ways.
My wife and I grabbed a late dinner in a nearby restaurant. Inside, there was lots of great wine and certificates.
The Essay
This is the winning essay that I submitted for the 2017 USA Laithwaites Prize.
My wine career began with humble aspirations.
Originally, I hoped to obtain a part-time job working in a wine shop in Chicago. This was to supplement my income in freelance web design.
Wine has always been something I enjoyed but never something I had studied deliberately.
But when I decided to take a leap into the wine world, I was hesitant to pursue yet another passion.
In the past, I had attempted to marry my hobbies with my career. In the cases of golf and technology, I ended up being disappointed and ultimately leaving those jobs for others.
I couldn’t seem to find the ideal work/life balance attributed to Confucius: If you chose a job you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
It seemed more myth than reality.
So while I decided to continue my career as a freelancer, I felt like it was the perfect time to see if I could turn my love of wine into a career.
It wasn’t more than a few minutes on the job that I confronted how little I actually knew.
In looking at labels and grasping the magnitude of our inventory, I was amazed at the volume of knowledge contained within the wine world.
It was obvious that I needed help.
That first came via a WSET Level 1 Award nearly a year ago.
My love, passion and curiosity grew from there. My instructors were tremendous, and they fostered not only my new appreciation for wine but my lifelong love of learning.
It wasn’t long after the completion of Level 1 that I registered for Level 2.
In the months leading up to the exam, I consumed as much wine information as possible. It was not only WSET materials but books, magazines, and blogs.
I was a sponge.
In my quest for wine knowledge, I realized there were few resources pointing people to potential wine careers.
The obvious was such. Even outsiders like me could understand the roles of Sommeliers, winemakers, and authors in the wine world.
But for careers paths with titles like consultant, buyer, podcaster, and even inventor, what did those trajectories look like?
Ultimately, this notion which I encountered during my studying served as inspiration for my next project.
My goal was to uncover how people had become wine experts. Perhaps, and even more importantly, I set out to discover what the term “wine expert” meant beyond academics.
As a result, I interviewed 35 wine experts, including Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers.
I packaged the interviews into a week long summit which I held online over a 10 day period this past July.
After the success in sharing this knowledge with others, I’ve decided to interview experts and dissect wine excellence full-time. All the while, I plan to continue to document my journey in pursuit of my own path to wine expertise.
If it were not for the structure and guidance of the WSET, I can’t imagine building this new community around wine.
The Original Outcome
I first published this piece two years ago. At the time, I faced a crossroads like so many of us in the first year of the pandemic.
For me, writing became therapy. I started publishing daily writing on Substack to rebuild my writing muscles.
At the time, I circled back to the final lines of my essay. And I tried again to make something out of my journey in wine.
I said:
It didn’t goes as planned the first time, but that’s the point isn’t it?
I didn’t make one wrong turn, so much as hit plenty of bumps and forks along the way.
So, here we go again.
It’s time to make “wine experts” out of more of you.
The Actual Outcome
I failed to get momentum on my wine podcast. I managed to record a few episodes, but it never went in the direction I was hoping.
I couldn’t find my place in wine. In fact, I was still recovering from another “dream job” that left me burned out.
But rather than having this sinking feeling of losing at technology, golf, and now wine. I’ve found peace with all three, unlike my essay submission.
Between the original post and now, I worked at a golf technology startup for a year. That role and my freelance experience led me to a position as Marketing Technology Analyst full-time.
In the meantime, I rediscovered the joy of wine and the habit of writing.
A year ago, I joined an amazing writing community, and I put together the shitty first draft of wine book. The beta reading will be available soon.
Then, I used that momentum to start a weekly wine newsletter where I help people get less dumb about wine.
In short, becoming an expert in anything takes time, especially your self.
Do you want to get less dumb about wine?
- Follow me on Medium → Brian McCann
- Subscribe to my weekly wine newsletter: Wine Blueprint. New issues come out every Friday, and I love answering reader questions (in fact this article was inspired by one)
- Check out more of my wine articles below:
