Congratulations to Divya Steinwall, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors.
About Divya:
I have spent over 20 years working in the Financial Services industry, but my real passion is wine. It encompasses three things I love – travel, history and food! A few years ago, I started taking wine courses purely to fuel my personal interest. I have learned so much about new wine regions and grape varieties that I wanted to find a way to share my discoveries with like-minded wine enthusiasts. So, last year I took a leap of faith and started by own small business as a wine consultant and operating a subscription-based wine club.
France is such a complex and varied wine region with so much viticulture history and tradition, that taking the FWS has really helped prepare me for the WSET Level 3 certification that I am currently completing. Understanding how different soil types can impact the flavors of grape varieties and the various winemaking techniques, many of them pioneered in France, was extremely helpful. And many of the grape varieties found in France are also found in many other parts of the world so learning the key characteristics from this course has translated to the other.
I am also currently enrolled in the Master of Champagne course with WSG and understanding the basic concepts in the FWS for this region has given me a solid foundation to dive deeper.
I absolutely love French wine, but like most, I was most familiar with Bourgogne and Bordeaux. The FWS program opened my eyes to all of the other diverse regions and varieties around France. Learning about the uniqueness of each area broadened my knowledge to try new wines which I can now take to my customers to help them discover new and interesting wines as well!
