Congratulations to Alejandro Artigas, SWS for achieving highest honors in the Spanish Wine Scholar exam with The Wine House, Los Angeles.
About Alejandro:
I’m a wine enthusiast. I’m a furniture designer and business owner. I’ve always had an interest in wine. My parents didn’t drink, so I’ve been self-taught until now. I’ve read a few books, and other than the WSET2 which I just completed, I had never done a course. I grew up in Mexico City and moved to the US in my early twenties to study Architecture. I’ve been paying attention to wine since my arrival. My earliest wine education was to read the labels at wine stores and even at the supermarket. I think I bought my first Wine Spectator around 2010.
I have an undergraduate and a master’s degree in Architecture. My wine studies had consisted to listening to wine store clerks, local tastings and the occasional book.
I aced the WSET2 a few weeks before starting the SWS, this gave me the confidence to take on the SWS. Yet the SWS is a very intense course, especially for non-wine professionals. I was quite intimidated at first, so I just dived in and studied like I was back in college. The course is very thorough, and I greatly enjoyed it, vicariously traveling throughout all of Spain. I’ve been to Spain a few times, and never saw it with the curiosity imparted by the course. I’m now excited to visit and correlate what I learned and saw on paper to the real thing.
I absolutely loved the course and think Martha is an excellent instructor. I did the course with my sister Gabriela, so it became a bit of a family topic. We spent Thanksgiving together and studied the whole time. As well as doing some tasting with our family. I have now started the French Wine Scholar course.
I will continue studying wine for no other purpose but the joy it brings me. I now like to study about wine as much as drinking it.
The course allowed me to learn not only about Spanish wines, but the culture, history and geography of Spain through the lens of wine. The course highlighted wine as a cultural enterprise, a local product affected by place, people and the historical conditions of the place but also outside influences.
