Congratulations to Tara Abernethy, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors!
About Tara:
I am a passionate wine enthusiast, especially of Old World wines. I created Vin Elegance, my company, in 2017 after extensive training in Bourgogne, France. My company specializes in French, Italian and Spanish wines, small production wines and wines from the world’s finest terroirs. My passion for wine began while living in France for the first time. I have lived there on three different occasions for educational purposes, including Toulouse, Tours and Beaune. My travel abroad has allowed me to become fluent in French and Spanish. My desire is to grow a business that provides valuable services to clients that would like to invest in wine, create an interesting and varied collection of wines for their cellars, travel to Old World Wine regions for a custom-made wine experience and participate in private and corporate tutored tastings geared toward the tastes of my clients or interested groups. I would also love to fulfill my dream of partaking in a wine tasting at Domaine de la Romanée Conti.
While living in Beaune, I successfully completed a professional program in the wine industry, called Courses in the International Wine Trade (C.I.W.T.) which was part of the Centre de Formation Professionnelle et de Promotion Agricole (C.F.P.P.A.) in Beaune. I also had the pleasure of experiencing an internship in Pommard in international wine importation and exportation.
I am currently enrolled in the Italian Wine Scholar program through the Wine Scholar Guild, and I aspire to successfully complete units 1 and 2 as well, and hopefully with Highest Honors again! The way the French Wine Scholar and the Italian Wine Scholar programs are organized, and due to the online modules being very straightforward, fruitful exam preparation is necessary and intense, but not unobtainable or overwhelming. The instructor that I have for the course is the same one that I had for The French Wine Scholar program, Mark Shipway, and he is a fantastic teacher. I am fortunate to have such a competent and well-informed educator for these courses.
Upon returning to Vancouver, I wanted to meet new contacts and to expand my French wine knowledge. Therefore, I enrolled in the French Wine Scholar program in Vancouver. I found this course to be an invaluable complement to my previous wine education and experience. I really enjoyed how the educational content also enhanced my prior French historical, geographical and cultural background that I had acquired by being an educator in these subjects for several years, and how wine is a major contributing influence in each of these areas. I feel the course has reinforced my expertise in French culture, and this will be evident in my wine consulting. These classes also brought amazing, new professional contacts into my life. I enjoy spending time with people who share similar interests and passions. I believe people that are attracted to careers in the wine industry, are life-long learners, as it is impossible to know everything there is to know about wine in one lifetime, and I draw inspiration from intelligent and motivated people.
