#MWStudyBuddy EXTRA: lessons from 10 years of mentoring

Meet your (tor)mentor

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Happy studies,
Richard.

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In the decade since passing the MW in 2015, I have mentored or tutored 18 students. Three of them became MWs, six are still studying and nine left the programme for a variety of reasons. All of them had different backgrounds, approaches, skills and experiences, but they all faced the same fundamental challenge of passing the MW exams.

To write this piece, I’ve reviewed the folder full of documents I’ve accumulated over ten years of mentoring. Spoiler alert: I haven’t uncovered the secret formula to passing. Instead, I identified a common set of questions that MW students ask themselves. What follows is a summary of those questions, then my general advice to anyone on the MW programme.

I don’t claim any new or original answers here – but since the same questions keep coming up, I hope this proves useful.

The most common questions of MW students

The first question sounds simple: do you really understand? MW-style answers tend to follow a strict formula, and that risks sounding – well, formulaic, rather than truly comprehending.

Practical answers on commercial potential are a good example. Consider a Riesling that is described as ‘suitable for grocery stores, by-the-glass in restaurants and in specialist merchants’.

That statement is too generic to demonstrate true understanding. After all, in many markets – perhaps most markets - Riesling is not an especially easy sell, so that is worth saying! Then give more detail about where might sell. German Riesling had a high-profile moment in China this year, for example, with lots of online sales during the Summer of Riesling campaign (see details in #MWStudyBuddy 001).

#MWStudyBuddy 001 - September 2025

Another example to consider is explaining origin for a top-level Burgundy. The trouble is that comments on balance, MLC, oak, intensity, persistence, complexity and ageability could describe good Chardonnay from anywhere. Flavour profile doesn’t necessarily help either.