WSG Tasting Diploma

The WSG Tasting Diploma is designed for advanced wine students and professionals with strong foundational wine knowledge and meaningful tasting experience.

Students should already be comfortable with major grape varieties, regions, production methods, structural components, quality assessment and standard tasting vocabulary.

This course does not teach the basics; it builds on them. For more insight into the level of this program and to help you make more informed choices about your wine study path, see HERE.

Most wine certifications focus on building technical accuracy—identifying grape varieties, regions, and structural components through standardized tasting methods. While this knowledge is important, it can lead to a mechanical approach that often overlooks the nuance, emotion, and meaning behind a wine.

The WSG Tasting Diploma takes a different path.

• It’s not about memorizing facts—it’s about deepening perception.
  You’ll develop a more intuitive and holistic tasting practice grounded in sensory science, critical thinking, and mindful observation.
• It challenges traditional frameworks.
  Instead of rigid tasting grids and formulaic notes, you’ll learn to interpret wine in context—considering origin, intent, emotion, and typicity.
• It’s multidisciplinary and forward-looking.
  Your educators include not only Masters of Wine and sommeliers, but also neuroscientists, writers, and cultural thinkers. This diversity fuels a richer exploration of what wine means, not just what it tastes like.
• It’s designed to evolve your voice as a taster.
  The goal isn’t just to evaluate wine—it’s to communicate its essence with clarity, confidence, and authenticity.

If you’re looking for a program that sharpens both your palate and your perspective, the WSG Tasting Diploma offers a truly distinctive alternative.

The WSG Tasting Diploma develops skills that matter across the wine industry: sharper perception, clearer communication, stronger critical thinking and greater confidence as a taster. Whether you work in education, buying, hospitality, sales, writing, judging or leadership, the program helps you move beyond formulaic tasting notes and communicate wine with more nuance, authority and individuality. It also supports personal development, helping serious tasters build greater sensory awareness, self-trust and a more meaningful relationship with wine.

Authentic wines of place help students connect wine to its origins: the land, climate, culture, history and people behind the glass.

These wines are not made to fit a formula. They reflect choices made in the vineyard and cellar, and they often reveal more individuality, emotion and meaning than standardized wines designed primarily for consistency.

This is not an elitist pursuit. Wines with personality, integrity and a clear sense of place can be found in famous appellations and humble regions alike. The goal is not to chase prestige, but to taste with greater attention to origin, intention and expression.

Wine tasting has too often been reduced to fixed categories, predictable profiles and formulaic notes. These tools can be useful, but they can also flatten wine’s nuance, emotion and meaning.

At WSG, we believe tasting should help students think more clearly, feel more deeply and connect more fully with the people, places and stories behind each glass. The WSG Tasting Diploma was created to bring tasting back to life: making it more dynamic, joyful, critical, communicative and human.

Read more about the philosophy and motivation behind the WSG Tasting Diploma course.

• Enhanced sensory perception: Taste with greater depth and nuance.
• Holistic understanding: Connect taste with a wine's origin and maker’s intent.
• Greater confidence as a communicator: Speak and write about wine with more clarity, individuality and authority.
• Self-awareness as a taster: Understand your unique tasting style and how to trust your perception.
• Refined tasting ability: Articulate the subtle differences between similar wines (e.g., comparing five top Alsatian Rieslings, beyond just technical descriptors like "floral" and "high acid").
• A vibrant community: Join the WSG Tasting Diploma network, a global group of like-minded wine enthusiasts.

No. The WSG Tasting Diploma is a tasting program, and tasting wine is essential to completing it successfully.

Unlike knowledge-based programs that can be completed through reading, study and written assessment alone, this course is built around sensory practice. Students are expected to taste regularly, complete guided tasting exercises and apply the WSG Tasting Approach to real wines.

A flexible list of suggested wines will be provided for each unit to support students in different markets.

While tasting is essential to the diploma, students in markets with limited access should be prepared to invest additional effort in sourcing the wines needed.

Between the self-guided assignments and the Diploma Summit, you will taste approximately 100 wines.

Assessment within the WSG Tasting Diploma is designed to support long-term growth as a taster, communicator and critical thinker. Rather than rewarding memorization or rigid correctness, the program emphasizes observation, interpretation, contextual understanding and the ability to communicate wine thoughtfully and coherently.

Throughout the diploma, students engage in a range of reflective, theoretical and tasting-based assessments that encourage the integration of sensory awareness, technical understanding and personal insight.

Both formative and summative assessments are used throughout the program to support continued development and prepare students for the final in-person assessment experience.

Yes. Participation in the Diploma Summit is required. The Summit is a pivotal part of the program, bringing together guided tastings, practical workshops, community connection and the mid-term theory and tasting assessment.

There is no remote, virtual or alternative format for the Diploma Summit or the mid-term assessment.

If you do not attend the Diploma Summit, you are not eligible to sit the final assessment. Sitting the final assessment with a future cohort would require an additional exam fee and is subject to availability.

Yes. You will retain access to the e-learning content for your enrolled cohort as usual. Any extension or re-opening of access beyond the standard access period is subject to an additional fee.

Students who do not achieve the minimum passing score of 75% may take one re-sit per assessment.

Re-sits must be completed within two years of the original course start date and must take place at one of WSG’s next scheduled assessment dates and locations. Special assessment sessions will not be arranged.

Yes. A fee of $750 applies to each approved assessment deferral or assessment re-sit.

Assessment deferrals are only considered in cases of serious illness or documented emergency, and supporting documentation must be provided and approved by WSG. Only one deferral per assessment is permitted.

In exceptional circumstances, students may request a course deferral up to the end of Month 2. If approved, the course deferral fee is $3,000. Course deferrals are not guaranteed and cannot be approved from the first day of Month 3 onward.

Please review the full Program-Specific Terms & Conditions before enrolling.

Upon graduating, you will receive:

• WSG Tasting Diploma certificate (digital & printable)
• WSG Tasting Diploma lapel pin (for purchase)
• Access to the program’s global alumni community

Graduating from the WSG Tasting Diploma is a key prerequisite for teaching the upcoming WSG Tasting Certificate program, but it is not the only requirement. We seek educators who not only have deep knowledge and expertise but also a passion for sharing that knowledge with others. Additional training and certification may be required to ensure that all instructors are aligned with WSG's educational standards and approach.