I started this blog at the time I signed up to study for the WSET Diploma. That was in September 2010. It was supposed to take two years to complete but, in fact took me nearly three. Six months of the overrun was down to me taking a break when the day job unexpectedly offered me a chance to take on a senior role I never thought I would experience. I enjoyed it but failed to keep the job. I rushed back to study and found that I had a mountain to climb. Once I had failed one half of the biggest of the exam I sensibly allowed myself a year to prepare for the resit.
If you read my posts from that time you will see that even with that time to study it was not a foregone conclusion. I successfully took the last exam in June 2013 and enjoyed the graduation ceremony in the Guildhall in January 2014.
So here I am two years after that wondering how to feel about it all.
Mostly good, to paraphrase Douglas Adams. Throughout the long study period and almost until now I have told anyone who has cared to ask that I was laying down the foundations for a second career, post eventual retirement from the current one, but now as the reality of retirement is vaguely visible over the horizon of my 60th birthday, itself still just over four years away, I wonder if that is at all realistic.
The wine business is an interesting place when viewed from just inside the touchline. It has a range of cliques, if that's not offensive, such as the world authorities who publish so many written words every month it's impossible to imagine them ever not typing but yet they love to write about the 1500 new Burgundies they have tasted and assessed in detail, so they must take a break sometimes. You also get the trendy wannabee iconoclasts who love faddy things like natural wine, orange wine and obscure producers who they once met at a secret tasting. They tend to be young and either penniless or early retired hedge fund managers.
So where could I fit? Hmm, ....
