Congratulations to Alberto Martinez-Interiano, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors with Northwest Wine Academy at South Seattle College!
About Alberto:
I’m a serious wine enthusiast currently in the process of exploring opportunities to enter the wine industry. My passion for wine in general – and French wine in particular – started about 10 years ago and evolved slowly via attending wine tastings and events, reading any article and book I could get my hands on, participating in tasting groups and primarily hanging out with like-minded people in Seattle and San Francisco.
I currently have a small blog focused on wine and travel: www.vinointeriano.wordpress.com and my mid and long-term goals are to continue with my wine education (I still have aspirations to go for an MW in 5-8 years) and make the transition to a profession in the wine industry.
Last Year I decided to formalize my wine education and started pursuing the WSET Level 3 Award in Wines – which I passed with Distinction.
As a follow-up, I enrolled in the French Wine Scholar Program at the Northwest Wine Academy in Seattle, which I found to be a great complement to the “horizontal” approach of the WSET with an in-depth specialization in a country (France) which I believe is the “gold standard” and benchmark for many other wines from around the world. I found the program very comprehensive and rigorous, yet very well designed and approachable for people in the wine industry as well as serious aficionados. The quality of the materials: study manual, maps and online modules was top-notch, and they were valuable companions to my learning experience.
As a next step, I’m currently enrolled in the Italian Wine Scholar (IWS) which I plan to complete this summer.
The FWS program helped grow and solidify my interest in pursuing a career in the wine industry and has given me the knowledge and confidence to continue my wine studies and at the same time explore different options in the wine trade.
I’ll be starting the WSET Diploma program this fall, and I’m convinced that the learnings from my Wine Scholar Guild education will surely be an asset. I’m also passionate about Spanish wines and can’t wait for the SWS program to be available in my area!
