Last updated August 2026
This is the section where our background is genuinely useful. Jesse studied Viticulture & Enology at UC Davis and has made wine in Burgundy, the Yarra Valley, California, Washington and the Douro, which means the questions here are written from the cellar side rather than paraphrased from a textbook.
The Certified exam expects you to know what happens in the vineyard and the winery, not just what ends up in the glass. These fifteen questions cover véraison, malolactic conversion, phylloxera and rootstock, carbonic maceration, chaptalisation, bâtonnage, botrytis, oak selection, saignée, must weight scales, sulfur dioxide, appassimento, fining agents, diurnal range and the difference between free-run and press wine. Each explanation tells you not just the answer but why it matters to what you taste.
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How to study viticulture and vinification for the Certified exam
Learn the French cellar vocabulary as a single group — pigeage, remontage, bâtonnage, soutirage, saignée. Examiners often test them against each other in one question, so knowing four of the five is worth less than you would hope.
Get chaptalisation right. It raises alcohol, not sweetness — the added sugar ferments out. This is the most frequently misremembered definition in the whole section, and the wrong version is always offered as a distractor.
Tie oak origin to specific aromatics rather than to quality. American white oak gives coconut, dill and sweet vanilla; French oak gives cedar and finer spice; Slavonian oak is chosen precisely because it contributes very little. This pays off in blind tasting as much as in theory.
Noble rot and grey rot are the same organism under different weather. If an answer option claims they are different species, it is a distractor. For how these techniques show up regionally, try the New World Regions quiz, and see the full practice exams for mixed-topic work.
Enough that you cannot skip it. Expect questions on fermentation, malolactic conversion, oak, common vineyard terminology and the major sweet-wine techniques. It is not a winemaking degree, but vague familiarity is not sufficient.
They describe the same process. It is increasingly called a conversion because it is carried out by bacteria rather than yeast, and no sugar is fermented — malic acid becomes lactic acid.
No. They are written independently by Wine Scribes and are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Court of Master Sommeliers.