Congratulations to Giuseppina Andreacchio, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors with the West London Wine School.
About Giuseppina:
I started working in the wine trade in 2006 as a wine broker. I then moved onto the on-trade sales of wine as an Italian specialist for many years with some of the iconic wineries of Italy, such as Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Gaja and Giacosa. Two years ago, I opened my own consultancy company. I work with Italian wineries helping them to find the right partner around the globe. I also run master classes for consumers because I enjoy teaching about wines in general, and Italian wines in particular. I am currently enrolled in the Italian Wine Scholar course and I will probably embark on the Spanish Wine Scholar too. I equally love selling and teaching about wines and I am currently in the process of opening my own wine school.
In 2012 I passed the WSET Diploma and recently I also passed the Italian AIS (Association of Italian Sommeliers) Certificate. The FWS has helped me to further improve my knowledge of French Wines which was covered by the WSET curriculum, but I believe the FWS is focusing, in a more specific way, on the analysis and description of the smaller appellations and it also goes into more details when it comes to showing lesser known wines. The FWS also covers the history of the single wine regions of France which is not covered by other courses. I also liked the idea of tasting wines from small, artisanal boutique wineries chosen carefully by the FWS tutors.
I am currently enrolled in the online IWS and, having passed the FWS, I feel more confident in my studies. Although, of course, the subject is different, the approach to the course is the same so I will definitely benefit from having attended the FWS before.
Being an Italian, sometimes I can find French wines a bit intimidating because of the difficult appellations, the wine styles and historical references. Therefore, I think that the FWS program has helped me to understand the differences between the two countries better. Also, knowing French wines in a very detailed way will surely be an important enrichment to my wine knowledge and, last but not least, will be an important comparison material for my Italian wine background.
