AN EDUCATION
NK : NATSUKI KIKUYA AM : ANTONY MOSS
NK : What were the challenges of introducing sake into the WSET ?
AM : There were three big challenges .
Firstly , WSET has a tradition of offering structured education programs that fully prepare people for the assessment , and this requires educators who have the skills and knowledge to teach these courses . Most of WSET ’ s existing educators were very familiar with wine , and some had a deep knowledge of spirits , but very few knew enough about sake to teach at the level we required . Identifying enough potential sake educators and finding the means to develop them into sake authorities was the biggest challenge .
Second , and related , our wine and spirits teaching makes extensive use of samples to demonstrate teaching points . There are few markets where it is easy to find the diversity of samples needed to demonstrate and contrast different yeast strains , rice varieties and production methods , etc , and in the UK we are importing our sakes directly from Japan .
The final challenge was estimating the demand . This is such a new area of business activity , and requires reaching new industry sectors in order to be successful . We predicted 300 candidates for the first full year , and had 303 , so our estimate was very close , but it might not have been !
NK : What elements of sake-education were completely new to the wine / spirit world ?
AM : Where diversity in wine comes largely from regional differences , and a great deal of spirits diversity comes from major differences in base material , and how it is process and aged , explaining the differences between mainstream sakes requires a much deeper , technical understanding of production . Because of this , we go into more detail regarding details of fermentation choices , compared to our wine and spirits qualifications at the same level .
NK : What countries and demographics do WSET operate through ?
AM : In the year just finished ( 2015-16 ), WSET had 72,171 candidates and added Bulgaria , Serbia , Peru , Israel and Latvia to the countries where WSET courses are offered – now we are in 73 countries . But the biggest markets for WSET are UK , China , USA , Canada , Hong Kong , Qatar , Taiwan , Australia , France and UAE . The WSET sake courses are now available in all of these except Qatar and France . I hope to add France soon , and in addition to this we will have courses in Sweden , Belgium , the Netherlands and Germany in the coming year .
Most WSET students are working in the wine and spirits industries . Their roles range from entry level positions to senior executives and cover all sections from production , through import , distribution , retail and Horeca , to marketing , communication , and education . IN addition to this , about a quarter of WSET students work in other industries . Some of these are planning a transition , but others study WSET courses to extend their amateur passion fro wine , spirits – and now sake .
NK : What are the aims of the WSET sake course ?
AM : The Level 3 course is primarily aimed at people whose primary job role is sake focussed . It gives them the skills to taste , describe and assess the quality in detail . It also provides an in-depth understanding of all the brewer choices that have an impact on style and quality , and sets this in a wider business context .
MUSEUM OF SAKE JOURNAL 52