The Diploma Podcast

Tonight is not for cramming. This short audio was created for Diploma students sitting with fear, doubt, adrenaline, exhaustion… and the strange feeling that they’ve somehow forgotten everything the night before the exam. I know that feeling well. This is not a revision podcast. It is a quiet companion for the eve of the exam. A place to breathe. To steady the mind. And to remember that D3 theory...

This episode moves Australia forward by examining New South Wales and Tasmania — two states where climate volatility, altitude, and water availability shape wine style more directly than scale or branding. Rather than treating regions as lists to memorize, the episode stays anchored in WSET exam logic: how latitude, humidity, rainfall timing, and diurnal range influence ripening patterns, picking...

This episode sets the foundation for understanding Italy as a wine country that cannot be reduced to a single climate, style, or narrative. Italy’s strength lies in accumulation rather than replacement: ancient wine culture layered with Roman trade, medieval land systems, post-war volume production, and modern quality ambition. Listen for the cause-and-effect logic that runs through the episode. G...

If Episode 4A explains how Alsace works in the vineyard and cellar, Episode 4B explains how Alsace organizes itself on the label and in the market . In this episode, we focus on structure, regulation, and price , again using only D3-approved material and keeping the logic exam-ready. We cover: Alsace AOC yields and why high maximums can dilute concentration Communes, lieux-dits, and how yield limi...

Alsace rewards clarity. This episode focuses on why Alsace looks and tastes the way it does , using only the WSET D3 Alsace chapter and translating it into clear cause-and-effect logic . In Episode 4A , we cover: Where Alsace sits geographically — and why a northerly region can still be dry and sunny The rain-shadow effect of the Vosges and its impact on disease pressure and ripening Why Alsace sp...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. Beaujolais is often misunderstood — and in the D3 exam, that misunderstanding costs marks. This episode brings Beaujolais into focus as a serious, Gamay-driven region , where site, grape physiology, and winemaking method interact very directly to determine style, quality, and price. Using only the WSET D3...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. Burgundy prices are not irrational. They are the logical outcome of scarcity, fragmentation, and demand . In Episode 2E , we move from vineyard to market: Growers, domaines, négociants, micro-négociants, and co-operatives The shift from négociant dominance to domaine bottling Hybrid business models and nam...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. Burgundy winemaking is often described as “minimal”, but that is misleading. The choices are precise, deliberate, and style-defining . In Episode 2C , we focus entirely on winemaking — without dilution or consolidation: White winemaking: pressing, clarification, fermentation choices Stainless steel vs barr...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. If Bordeaux is about blending to manage risk, Burgundy is about site selection to manage risk . In Episode 2B , we move deep into the growing environment and vineyard choices that shape Burgundy’s styles: Continental climate and the implications of short summers Why early-ripening Pinot Noir and Chardonnay...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. Burgundy is not just another French region. It is the reference point for single-variety, site-driven wines — and the reason why Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are understood the way they are today. In Episode 2A , we lay the foundations: Burgundy’s long grape-growing history, from Roman times through the monas...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. Episode 1B of the Bordeaux D3 Audible Cheat Sheets series builds directly on Episode 1A. If Episode 1A explained how Bordeaux manages climatic risk in the vineyard and cellar , this episode explains how Bordeaux manages reputation, price, and scale in the market . In Episode 1B: Appellations, Classificatio...

This is a short wine education podcast designed for WSET students and serious wine learners. This episode kicks off a new series of D3 Regional Audible Cheat Sheets , created specifically for WSET Diploma students aiming for distinction , not just recall. These are not summaries of the textbook . They are designed to help you understand why the details matter — and how to turn them into clear caus...

Episode 21 is your “translation guide” for D1: it shows how to turn winemaking tools into exam-ready cause-and-effect sentences that link choices to style, quality and price across inexpensive high-volume and premium small-volume wines. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thesommpour.substack.com/subscribe

Most no- and low-alcohol wines begin as full-strength wine and are then dealcoholized using reverse osmosis, vacuum distillation, or spinning cone; quality depends on minimizing manipulation through smart viticulture and fermentation choices, while managing the predictable losses in aroma, body, stability, shelf life, and yield. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other su...

Rosé is built around controlled skin contact and color prediction. Direct pressing and short maceration require experience because color fades during fermentation, while blending offers the easiest precision but is restricted in many EU geographical indications; across all methods, freshness depends on cool handling, early picking, cool fermentations, and avoiding malolactic conversion to preserve...

Post-fermentation choices are where red wines earn their texture and ageing shape. Pressing decisions, post-ferment maceration, malo timing and oak exposure can refine—or overbuild—tannin, color stability and complexity. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thesommpour.substack.com/subscribe

In red winemaking, “style” is built through extraction. Listen for how temperature, time on skins, cap management and oxygen exposure shape color stability, tannin texture and aromatic profile long before maturation even begins. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thesommpour.substack.com/subscribe

Residual sugar is never just about sweetness. In this episode, listen for how method shapes meaning — whether sugar is concentrated in the vineyard, arrested in fermentation, or added at the end, and what each choice quietly signals about risk, balance, cost and quality. The best sweet wines aren’t defined by how much sugar they contain, but by how convincingly acidity, flavor concentration and te...

Chapter 16 is where white winemaking stops feeling “lighter” than red and starts revealing how exposed it really is. Without tannin or skin structure as a buffer, small decisions around oxygen, solids, temperature, lees and timing have an outsized impact on aroma, texture, stability and shelf life. As you listen, don’t memorise techniques in isolation. Track the why : when clarity is chosen over t...

This episode picks up at the point of commitment: packaging. Once wine is sealed, there are almost no second chances — so oxygen management, closure choice, hygiene, and quality systems become part of wine quality itself. We cover finishing checks and last-minute adjustments (SO₂ targets by style, sparging to reduce dissolved oxygen, the role of CO₂), then the key bottling risks and classic faults...

Chapter 15 is where winemaking gets quietly high-stakes. This episode focuses on what happens after fermentation, when the goal is no longer “making wine,” but making sure the wine will stay clear, stable, and true once it leaves the cellar. We walk through clarification and stabilisation in a distinction-grade, exam-ready way: natural sedimentation and racking, centrifugation, fining trials and t...

Chapter 14 is where winemaking decisions start to compound over time. This episode focuses on how oxygen, wood, lees and blending quietly reshape a wine after fermentation — influencing texture, aroma development, ageing potential and price. For D1, this chapter is less about memorising techniques and more about understanding why some wines are bottled quickly while others are deliberately given t...

For Chapter 13B, this is where you score by showing intent. When an exam question asks why two wines from the same region taste different, this is your toolkit: whole bunch versus destemmed, press type and press fractions, must adjustments for sugar and acid balance, cultured versus ambient yeast, fermentation temperature choices, vessel choices, and whether malolactic conversion is encouraged or...

Before you close this episode, here’s how Chapter 13A earns you marks in real exam answers. When a question asks about style, quality, or faults, you can’t just talk grapes and fermentation temperatures — you need to show you understand what happens in the fragile hours between vineyard and tank. Oxygen management and SO₂ aren’t “technical trivia”; they explain why a wine stays bright, why thiol-d...

Chapter 12 sits at the heart of D1 because it explains why winemaking choices exist at all .This is not about memorising rules or taking sides — it’s about understanding how philosophy shapes tools, risk, cost, consistency and ultimately wine style. If you can link a winemaking approach to the outcomes it enables or restricts, you’re already thinking at distinction level. This is a public episode....