As I said last time, I was really nervous about my first tasting exam. It’s only now, knocking on a year after I did Level 3, that I back myself to tell wines apart every time and write good tasting notes. Back then it was more of a case of “Er….colour? Well it’s white wine! Does that count for a point?”
I’d done the writing part ok. Again, book learning’s not the bit I worry about, and when I’m as interested in it as I am with wine then ‘pas de probleme, Rodney!’ A multiple choice section and a short essay question is the format and once you’ve read the question, given yourself enough time, and scribbled down everything you know in a fairly legible manner then it’s ok.
Then came the tricky bit as far as I was concerned. Two glasses put in front of us, one white and one red. I looked at them, studied the colour for a brief moment, took the first (the white) to my nose, and took a deep sniff. Then my mobile phone went off in my bag. It was in the exam room, and it was very loud. I swear to this day I’d switched it off! F@$k!!!
I sprinted across the room amid the glares and the tutting from across the room, picked it up, and hurled my bag into the corridor. And then I sat there, letting the blood drain back out my face and hopefully back into my taste buds. 10 minutes into the 15 minute session and I hadn’t written a thing. This was not going well!
Cue blind panic. Why did I panic? In the big scheme of things did it really matter? This was me in an exam, of course it bloody did! I scribbled down a half arsed tasting note, praying that I’d at least got something down that made sense.
Then I had to wait 3 months to find out if I’d messed it up or not…
Cheers
Mike
