The eye of the storm: FT articles, new site launches and MW results looming
A personal essay on the MW experience and the wonderful people I've met along the way
I can’t shake the feeling that I am in the eye of a storm today. Two weeks ago, I had a feature published in the FT about my Master of Wine journey, the following week I soft-launched my new website www.annaspoonerwine.com and in 5 days’ time I receive my Stage Two Master of Wine results.
But today, I am heading up to the Scottish Highlands for the annual family holiday with my husband’s family. I am relaxed, even meditative (or at least I am trying to be!)
So, I have spent a couple of hours re-writing an early draft of the FT piece on the MW. It’s a little more personal than the one that was published, but I thought I would share this honest version of events with my subscribers. I hope you enjoy it.
'The Master Clan’
There are three things that everyone tells you when you start the Master of Wine that prove to be true. They tell you that it’s all consuming, that you’re loved ones need to support you, and that you will make friends along the way.
What they don’t tell you is that it’s a level of all-consuming that turns you into a certifiably more insane version of yourself; that the loved one’s support will be tested in ways you hope will never happen again; and the friends you make along the way are people that you would probably never have crossed path with and that your life will be richer for it.
In fact, the friends you make along the way are not friends in any normal sense of the word. They’re your comrades in battle, they’re the only people who truly understand the enormity of the task and the challenges on your mental health, the juggles of work-life-MW imbalance; and the feelings of unworthiness so severe that it can slowly stun you to numbness. So, I dedicate this blog post to them. My comrades.
The Master of Wine programme starts with your entrance exam, after which you’re accepted but don’t ‘meet’ fellow students until several months later at your annual residential seminar. Before the first seminar, a good friend and wonderful supporter Sarah Knowles (already an MW) kindly put me in touch with some other first year candidates so that we might form a study group. I remember our first Zoom call like it was yesterday.
One lady, an Aussie living in the UK, had big hair and an even bigger personality; another was an intimidating Canadian-Chinese sensory science Professor from the University of Copenhagen; another a British importer with a focus on diversity; and another a specialist Buyer focused on low-intervention wines.
At the end of our first meeting on Zoom I said to my husband that I couldn’t see how I fitted in – there was nobody like me.
What I didn’t realise was that sharing this journey with ‘nobody like me’ would come to be one of its greatest gifts.
I made a friend for life on a lengthy bus journey across obscure parts of Germany. I hosted bootcamps at my old home in Essex where we ate paella, opened over a hundred bottles to taste (much to my husband’s delight) and talked late into the night about everything other than wine. I wrote raps about closures with them and recorded it for them; we invented ‘what wine am I?’ games over WhatsApp with the sole goal of honing our descriptions into as a few a words as possible; and made dance routines demonstrating vintage variation. I travelled to Burgundy to wander vineyards with a dear friend who has since brought his lovely wife to the Rhône to stay. I took Zoom calls in car parks with producers from California; met up before weddings to go over essay structure; and relaxed over Australian raclette (as curious as it sounds – there was kimchi.)
And, of course, we’ve also been lucky to get to know many generous existing MWs who have offered their spare time and seemingly limitless patience as they helped us practice our blind tasting. They gave up their weekends and offered their support. I’m lucky to call many of them my friends now too; after all, they went through the trenches before we did – they understand.
During the programme, you develop a sort of osmotic obsession, looking for every person, place or wine to rub up against to learn more and to do better. And whilst there are experts you want to quiz about regenerative viticulture, rootstocks, or bottling lines, it’s without doubt my peers who have influenced me the most.
They have picked me up, calmed me down, reeled me in and talked things out.
That big haired lady turned out to have an even bigger heart and we continue to speak daily about far more than just wine. And the intimidating Professor turned out to have a wicked sense of humour and a drive that has kept me afloat, even as we shared a hotel room together for our final exams. The three of us have even bought tickets to go to see Taylor Swift together in Vienna next year. The singer who united our three divergent tastes, in the city where we first met in person.
So, if I don’t pass this time, and with a constant reminder of an 8% pass rate I know that might likely be true, I’ve learnt more in the past two years than I could have ever imagined. And I have an unlikely group of misfits to thank for that.
Thank you x
Great piece Anna. The best of luck for Friday too!