Congratulations to Celeste Bailey, FWS, for passing the French Wine Scholar exam with highest honors!
About Celeste:
I am both an enthusiast and professional. I’ve been an enthusiast since I was old enough to legally enjoy wine and have always wanted to become more wine-knowledgeable, but did not have the time due to my legal career and family obligations. Once I retired early from being a lawyer, I signed up to take a WSET class at the Florida Wine Academy and passed Levels 2 and 3 with distinction. Shortly thereafter, the founder of the Florida Wine Academy asked me to join her team to help with teaching wine courses.
Having always enjoyed French wine as well as traveling to different wine regions in France, wanting to become a French Wine Scholar was the next obvious step for me in my wine education. Now I will also be able to teach the FWS program to further wine education for other enthusiasts and professionals.
The FWS program greatly enhanced my knowledge of the wine regions in France because it is singularly focused on the French wine regions, history and culture. Other programs are multi-national and therefore don’t have the time to focus on the history that impacts the wine regions. The FWS also includes in-depth coverage of regions that were not included in prior wine courses, so there is simply a lot more to learn about France and its wines in the FWS that is not available in other programs.
I am currently enrolled in the Spanish Wine Scholar Educator program, set to start in 2019. I signed up for this program in large part due to my experience and success with the FWS curriculum. I look forward to becoming a Spanish wine scholar and to being able to educate others to do the same.
I hold a special place in my heart for French wines and will want to now explore certain wine regions in more detail, so my plan is to enroll in a Masters program. The only problem is picking which one! I will be joining the Wine Scholar Guild’s Bordeaux trip this coming June to test my knowledge that I acquired during the FWS program and to further my learnings of that region.
