A note from OWB Education Manager Bree Stock MW:

While it’s currently hard to imagine welcoming visitors in our tasting rooms, there will be a time when we are back to offering tasting experiences on-site. It is also likely that international travel will continue to be limited and we should expect an influx of local and U.S. domestic visitation in late summer.

Wine is the great connector and it will be essential that our tasting rooms respond with the exceptional hospitality offerings that we are renowned for delivering and extend an open welcome to all. OWB is currently developing tasting room and wine industry-specific workshops to ensure our tasting rooms are as welcoming as ever. With that in mind, and with this slower period in our businesses, it is the prime opportunity to have our tasting room staff reflect on what it truly means to be welcoming to all, by understanding each other.

The hospitality leaders at Starbucks have worked with experts at Arizona State University to create a 15-course curriculum, designed to address bias through understanding the human experience and are offering this program to all at no charge. This is a great opportunity to learn to better understand others and deepen our connections to all our visitors so that as an industry we return stronger than ever with our hospitality when social distancing ends we can again welcome visitors to our great wine regions.

These short courses, together called “To Be Welcoming,” are great tool to educate your staff ahead of our specific tasting room training programs.

Click here to get started.

Below is a message from Adam Chase of Grape Experience Wine & Spirit School

Several of you have told me you have some extra time these days given the Covid 19 situation, but I understand that money is tight.  We have worked out with WSET that if you are interested in starting the first part of the Diploma – the Foundation Units D1 Wine Production and D2 Wine Business – you can do so in an online format and rather than pay all upfront for these units, you could split the payment with an opportunity to postpone the second unit and payment.  That means the following:

• You would pay $950 now and enroll in D1 Wine Production Online with its exam on July 29, 2020 in Boston or August 4, 2020 in San Francisco
• The remaining $950 would be due on August 1, 2020 and would allow you to continue to D2 Wine Business
• If on August 1 you wanted to pause Diploma, you could do so and make the payment when you resume for D2 – you have 3 years to complete Diploma before WSET asks you to re-enroll for a fee, so you could easily put D2 off for a year and still possibly finish the program in 3 years
  • WSET raises prices each August but you would not be charged additional increases if you postpone D2

As most of you know, within 10 business days of registering for Diploma, you get access to the digital textbook, so you could start studying in April with the actual Online course beginning June 1.

Online Diploma D1 and D2 Specifics

The exams for these two units of Diploma are composed only of short answer essay questions.  There is no tasting element in either the D1 or D2 exam so they do lend them selves to the Online format.  We may also do a live review zoom session if that is something enough students would like.  Here are the specifics of Online:

• The D1 course runs June 1-July 12, 2020
• D2 runs August 17-September 27 with a 1-hour exam on October 27, 2020
• Each week you may log in at any time between Monday and Sunday
• An Online Tutor, who may be situated anywhere in the world, will post reading assignments and theory exercises – these are for your benefit and do not count towards your grade, nor does whether you log in at all (meaning no grade is based on class participation)
• For each D1 and D2 you get a sample exam feedback test with feedback designed to really help you on the actual exam (again, this does not count towards your final Unit grade)
• Your Unit grade is based solely on the in person exam you take with Grape Experience
• You may switch back and forth between Online format for these units and traditional class format for any other unit (we also offer a combination of online and traditional class for D3, D4 and D5).  You may also choose to take D2 in the in-person format the next time we offer it instead of Online.

How to Enroll

If you would like to take advantage of this opportunity, here is what to do before May 1, 2020:

1. Go to this Grape Experience Web page: https://www.grapeexperience.com/other-payments/
2. In the COMMENTS section put “Diploma D1 and D2 one half”
3. In AMOUNT put $950
4. Then email me your mailing address, birthdate with year and phone number

For anyone who would like to pay the entire amount now the link is:  https://www.grapeexperience.com/events/diploma-units-d1-d2-online-san-francisco-students-3/

Questions

Please feel free to email or call me at 415-309-0761 to discuss any questions or concerns you have.

You can find more information at https://www.grapeexperience.com/wset-diploma-san-francisco-2/ OR at https://www.wsetglobal.com/media/7177/wset_l4wines_specification_en_july2019.pdf

Napa Valley Online Wine Academy is offering a 20% discount to Oregon producers on the following courses. Just enter the code OREGON20 to receive your discount.

Oregon Wine Expert

American Wine Expert

Wine 101 Foundation Online Course

1:1 Wine Expert Coaching

Sommday Deductive Tasting Course