Congratulations to Sanghyuk Lee, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors with WSA Academy in Seoul
About Sanghyuk Lee:
I’m a wine enthusiast and at the same time a power plant engineer. As wine knowledge is wide, deep and interesting, continuous study of wine is important. For me, wine is like a mentor which makes me humble.
I first started to study wine at the age of 23. I was hospitalized at that time because I was injured. Spending time alone in the hospital was boring so I looked around and found a book about wine on the bookshelf. So, with curiosity, I started to read that book. After reading that book, I wanted to explore more about wine, so, since then, I read various books about wine such as Wine Bible by Karen Macneil and The Complete Practical Winetasting Course by Michael Schuster and studied wine alone by tasting different types of wine based on a guideline in books.
I love to study wine continuously because it always makes my life energetic. Wine is my life-long friend. So, whether I work in wine industry or not, I would like to spend my entire life by reading and studying wine.
In 2017, I passed WSET Level 3 Certification after attending lectures by Soojin Park (WSET Diplomate) in WSA Wine Academy in South Korea. While I was looking for my next goal in 2018 after passing the WSET Level 3, I found out about FWS Program from Soojin Park and was attracted by an in-depth course on French wine, so I attended that program. Through that FWS Program, I could acquire more knowledge about French wine deeply and systematically. Moreover, it was a great opportunity to learn about history of French wine and food culture.
I am now interested in IWS, SWS, Sud du France, WSET Diploma and Court of Master Sommelier Level 1 and 2. As I prefer an off-line lecture, I hope an off-line course of IWS and SWS can be launched in Korea. If that happens, I will surely take those courses.
To briefly describe about FWS Program, it is a concentrated knowledge of French wine. It helps to understand terroirs and towns of all regions in France in detail. The surprising fact is that this program contains French terroir more closely than any other programs. By learning a terroir in detail which is an essence of wine, I could learn more about the nature of French wine.
Also, I was surprised that this program deeply taught about all regions of French wine. I think it delivered general and detailed knowledge about French wine to students at once. Lastly, the detailed explanation about grape varieties was impressive. The part which gathers grape varieties based on genetic characteristics of grape was very interesting.
Through FWS, I could learn detailed knowledge about French wine which I couldn’t easily learn in other courses. I appreciate staff of WSA Academy and Soojin Park who gave me a guideline on all parts. I think FWS Program is an essence of learning knowledge of wine in the world beyond France.
