🔥 Warm up question
According to the textbook, the Western Cape has mainly three types of soil — Table Mountain sandstone-based, granite-based and shale-based. We can understand these soil types roughly as:
Nutrient level → sandstone < granite < shale
Water retentio n→ sandstone < granite ≤ shale
It’s also useful to know that most Cape soils are too acidic for vines to flourish. This means that growers have to invest in heavy lime adjustment to reach the suitable pH. On top of it, there are viral diseases to worry about. They are…
You will find the correct answer at the end of the today’s newsletter 😉
✒️ Practice question
Question five from the October 2019 exam
What are the main influences on the climate in Chile? (25% weighting)
Explain how factors in the growing environment determine the style of wine produced in Elqui, Casablanca and Colchagua. (75% weighting)
✔️ Examiner’s Report
Copyright © Wine and Spirit Education Trust
This was another question where answers were rather poor. While most who attempted this question were able to write in general terms about the factors that influence the climate in Chile (latitude, the Andes, the Humboldt Current, El Niño, La Niña), they were certainly less adept when it came to the more specific growing environment of the three named regions.
The following candidate provided a very convincing answer in all sections of the question, but it was one of very few to do so.
Since there’s already an sample answer provided by the Examiner, we will skip the AI sample answer section today.
What do you think of this student answer? How does yours compare? I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts 🙌
👀 And the correct answer for the warm up is…
“Leafroll & fanleaf“ is the correct answer.
Esca is a fungal disease. Blight and Pierce’s are both bacterial, the latter is a big problem in California.
For more details, please refer to WSET Diploma in Wine D3 textbook p502. This section is lengthy. Make sure that you mention the complexity of Cape soils in any South Africa questions.
It’s really interesting to see that after emphasising that candidates should pay attention to the marking weights this ‘distinction’ answer totally ignores them - 36 lines for a 25% question and then 27 for the 75% 🤣