From confusion to clarity: Make studying wine easier with mnemonics & storytelling
Many students that are preparing for WSET get overwhelmed with the amount of information for each grape variety. From origin & flavour profiles to regions and vinification - sometimes it can feel like you’re drowning in a sea of facts that are all so similar to each other. The main problem is that classic study methods like flashcards and endless repetition don’t actually create a long lasting or clear memory for each wine.
The lack of an effective approach can not only affect your confidence, but also can influence your performance during exams. Luckily there’s a solution that is accessible for everyone: mnemonic storytelling. Tricks of the Vine’s unique application of proven methods to memorise, makes the studying of wine simpler, more fun and more effective. Here we expand a bit more on how this innovative technique can help you go from confused and lost, to clear and vivid memories for each grape variety.
Common problems when studying WSET
Before we go into solutions, it can help to understand why the classic study methods don’t always work. Here’s a couple of common challenges:
1. Information overload
Wine is a complex topic with countless variables: grape varieties, climate, soils, winemaking methods,… Many students try to just straight up memorise it as a list of facts, without an effective way to structure or process it. This can be quite frustrating as the factors can be so similar to eachother you start mixing things up.
2. Lack of context and meaning
When doing rote memorisation with flash cards, you often lack the context behind the information. Yes, you’re drilling the information, but if there’s no context it’s hard to keep each grape variety’s qualities organised and easily accessible in your brain. And let's not talk about how easy it is to forget it after the exam if not being constantly reinforced.
3. Lack of active memorisation techniques
Fancy sounding concept, but it’s very simple and comes natural to everyone’s brain: Associations and stories are easier to remember. And when having to memorise 30 lists of (let’s face it) very, very similar information it’s very easy to start to confuse or mix up facts/characteristics. Especially long term, after already 2 or 3 months chances are high each list is a bit blurry and might be uncertain which obviously is not the goal.
How mnemonic storytelling offers the solution
Mnemonic storytelling isn’t exactly new (WineSpectator has an article on it from 2012, and even then it was already quite established), but it hasn’t been fully applied to the studying of wine. Simply put, we've converted facts and characteristics into vivid images or stories that are easy to remember. Instead of memorising dry lists of facts, you use associations that your brain naturally makes or remembers. Tricks of the Vine created a system to easily represent each grape variety’s characteristics and created a memorable identity so it’ll be easier and faster to memorise, while also creating a longer lasting memory.
1. Creation of Associative Connections
With this system you’re making associations from the grape variety going directly to your story. This way you don’t need to remember additional information (some memory systems like the peg system require you to memorise a letter or number system to then be able to use it, here that’s NOT the case). As soon as you see the grape variety, the associated connection comes up in your mind.
For the grape variety “Fiano”, it might be easily associated with the word “piano”.
Now the best thing is that, as humans we naturally make connections like these. Each of these grape varieties names will remind us of something. But it doesn’t stop there! Each of those “somethings” will have a natural action linked to it…
For the word “piano”, the action that feels natural is to “play the piano”
So the stories that we’ll be telling require no additional information to be memorised! They’re all inherently connected through the collective consciousness that you have as a human. Sounds fancy, but it’s as easy as “a Car? It drives”, “A sandwich? You eat it”.
2. Stories make information memorable
There’s no doubt it’s easier to remember something like “Newton tree apple head gravity”, than “dog envelope thirteen yarn window” because many of us already know the story of Newton. Stories are easier to remember, especially when there’s something silly, rude, or shocking happening. So when we have our starting points for the story, it naturally has an action it leads to, which then leads to the next bit. By connecting / associating grape varieties to characters, situations or recognisable metaphors it’s much easier to remember as everything is connected and naturally leads to the next bit of information.
Sauvignon Blanc could be linked to “Sauvage Blanc”, a “wild white guy”. So a part of the story could be to imagine “Gus, a wild white guy who strayed from the garden path to follow his passion”. Which can represent light body (the main character), asparagus (Gus, the name of the main character), wet stones (the path), grass (garden), blossom (garden), passion fruit (passion).
By imagining these stories (and because we also give you a visual representation to help you frame everything), you’re not only memorising the flavour and aroma profiles, but integrated into the stories are also characteristics like skin thickness, budding time, and ripening time which is information you’ll need later on.
3. Effective recall
(This is where the explanation gets a bit more intense or technical when talking about it, but in reality you’ll see it flows very naturally and doesn’t require any effort.)
As you hear the stories, you’ll start to recognise there are some returning elements and notice patterns in the stories; bodies of water, animals, or stuff made out of wood, etc. These are all easy entry points into the story, when looking for specific information. This means that when you’re trying to retrieve specific information there’s no need to go through everything, but just “zoom in” on the bits of information you need!
This is both useful in exams, as well as during work as a sommelier or merchant, because you can easily access the required information without needing to iterate through all the elements. We’d say there’s a maximum of just 2(!) touchpoints to recall any information, and the first touchpoint is the natural association (like piano for Fiano). So that means it allows for an incredibly efficient and reliable recall.
4. A fun and engaging study method
Instead of boring rote memorisation, Tricks of the Vine made it engaging and fun. Students who used this method found it less stressful and easier to stay motivated. Here’s a couple of ways you can start applying these concepts yourself:
- make up your own stories for each grape variety
- create drawings or mindmaps to reinforce the connections
- practice telling the stories, as a voice note to yourself
Experiences from students who used our method
Several students who applied the mnemonic storytelling method can confirm the impressive results,
Emma (27), WSET2 student: “I kind of struggled to memorise all the different grape varieties’ primary, secondary and tertiary flavours… But once I started with the stories, everything started to fall into its place. Now I now only remember all the flavours, but they each have unique identities that I can build on. Instead of delving into my brain when reading a wine menu, now all the information jumps at me just from reading the name.”
Davide (35), Assistant Sommelier: “I used to just try and cram all the information in my head, which worked for a short time, but for any bottles that were not often ordered I would forget... Now, with using the tricks, each bottle is really unique and easy to recall, so now is easy to communicate with clients in a more relaxed way.”
From Confusion to Clarity - You can do it too!
It’s possible to get an understanding of the complex world of wine, in a more effective and fun way that just doing rote memorisation. With mnemonic stories you can create longer term memories and access the information faster and easier. And what’s even better, if you choose to continue to WSET3 and WSET4 you’ll find out that you already know a bunch of information for each grape variety as they’re already a part of the story!
Discover our free guide!
Are you ready to try it yourself? You can try it right now, get instant access to our video guide, and discover the details on how you can effortlessly memorise all the minutiae of wine.