Congratulations to Jerry Chengyi Chen, IWS, for passing the Italian Wine Scholar exam with highest honors.
About Jerry:
I am a wine educator as well as an enthusiast, especially into Italian wines ever since my first job in the wine industry in 2007. I worked in a wine company that imported only Italian wines which hooked me directly up to Italian wines. As a wine educator of WSET diploma, I speak for many different topics and regions, but down deep in my heart, Italian wine is always my favorite topic for its uniqueness yet diversity, its noble taste/style at very competitive price and always wonderful choices to share Italian wines in all respects.
After I studied and graduated with the certificate of AIS (Association of Italian Sommelier), I found was quite familiar with Italian wines but not the rest of the world, so I turned to WSET, I became a wine educator after Level 3, then WSET diploma. But still, the wines attracting me the most were those from Italy as always, I studied and obtained VIA ambassador. Eventually I turned to IWS, for its systematic study materials and logical knowledge program, with all the necessary information that is needed to cover a wine region/varieties.
Currently I am thinking about FWS, after a double study materials of IWS, I am sure the similar structure and system can run me through FWS or SWS or any other countries without too much difficulty.
While WSET gave me a clear picture of how to learn about wines, then IWS program gave me a clearer picture about how to understand Italian wines/regions/grape varieties/culture as a whole, the textbooks are so far the best reference books about Italian wine if anybody ask me to recommend one which can be a perfect guideline to follow for studying all other regions/countries.
