Congratulations to Robert Galbraith, FWS, for achieving highest honors in the French Wine Scholar exam with Eno Cultura, Sao Paulo, Brazil.
About Robert:
I am a journalist specialized in business, advertising, marketing, gaming and sports in general. After a 17-year career in newsrooms in Brazil, I have my own PR firm today. I discovered my passion for wine in my late twenties during a visit to Concha y Toro in Chile and later tasting a Angelica Zapata Malbec at a Beach restaurant in northeastern Brazil, the first wine to blow my mind – today I would never drink such a powerful red at a Beach site! The connection grew strong during my many visits to Cannes to cover the International Advertising Festival as a reporter, drinking the best rose wines in the world. Two trips to South Africa in 2009 and 2010 to cover the World Cup reconnected me with the country, for which I held a passport until 2011, and discovering the local wines that captured my heart and mind. On a trip to Italy, I was introduced to Italian wines by a Milan taxi driver´s precious tip: “You must drink the wines from our holy trinity: Amarone, Barolo and Brunelo”. I was hooked forever.
Unfortunately I still don´t work with wines, but I have plans to write a fiction book inspired by and based on the wine ancient history and maybe boosting my personal Instagram to create inspiring content. I have ambitions to slowly bring wine into my professional life. While it´s not clear how to do this professional shift, I will keep on studying and making new friends and contacts and perhaps eventually taking on some PR clients in the wine industry as well as writing about it.
My job as a journalist never gave me much chance to do any extra activities in my life besides delivering my stories within the always tight deadlines. The pandemic almost ruined my PR business. The unexpected free time I had in 2020 was totally dedicated to wine studies and I managed to do my WSETs 1, 2 and 3. My business had fully recovered when I started French Wine Scholar in August 2021, but I had already created a study routine and discipline, in which I managed to fit in my work routine and keep up my studies. My passion for French Wine helped me to successfully pass the exam with the Highest Honors. Having mentors to inspire us is very important and I especially thank Paulo Brammer and Thiago Mendes, founders of Eno Cultura, for always giving me full support and advice on where to direct my efforts.
I have enrolled myself in the Spanish Wine Scholar and US Wine Expert from the Napa Valley Academy to gain in-depth knowledge about two of my favorite wine-producing nations, plus the Wine Foundation course of Tanya Morning Star. After these certificates, I am planning to engage in a Bordeaux or Rhone Master Level with WSG before attempting the WSET Diploma maybe next year.
France is to the wine world the same as Brazil is to football. France is absolutely basic to any ambition in solid learning about wine. So after I completed my basic WSET knowledge, I felt that any further step couldn´t be taken without an in-depth journey into French wine history, geography and its iconic regions. Any course or professional activity I engage in relative to the wine industry will have more chances of success if I have the French background.
