The CSW Study Guide: My Own Condensed Version
Because of my ongoing preparation for the Certified Wine Educator (CWE) exam, I haven’t been posting on this blog as much as I would like. As with the CSW, which I passed last August with relative ease, I plan on crushing the CWE, if that’s even possible. Earning this certification is my only real goal for 2010, aside from maybe winning the Napa Valley 
Vintners Battle of the Palates (having barely won last year, I plan on coming back even stronger this year, but we’ll see how it goes). Frankly, having goals like these is the only thing that gets me through the humdrum of the work week.
Certainly, passing the CWE will require substantially more effort than the introductory CSW, but I do love wine, and its academic nature has always been part of its appeal for me (that, and catching a nice Cabernet buzz by 10am). So I’m just beginning to gear up for the exam, and I will grind it out for as long as possible. Anyhow, since so many people have been discovering the Thirsty Reader through CSW-related googling, I’ve decided to post my own version of the CSW study guide, which can be downloaded below as a 55-page PDF document.
I need to acknowledge at the outset that some of the material in this document has been lifted verbatim from the actual CSW Study Guide. I created this document as a way of distilling 235 pages of information into some key bullet points that might be easier to digest. Therefore, I’m not claiming any originality in terms of thoughts, ideas, or authorship. Furthermore, nothing has been properly quoted or cited within. When I had originally developed this document back in August 2009, I had never intended to offer it publicly. Only later did it occur to me that it might help others.
It’s important to point out that — even as a condensed version of the CSW Study Guide — my stripped-down, bullet-point version still contains much more information than the CSW will ever cover (I wanted to make this document useful for the CWE as well). Although it was a rather tall order, I tried to minimize all typos, which included keeping all of the proper accent marks on all of the foreign words. I can say from an American perspective that the French language is a royal pain, and the German language is little better. Therefore, the file below is bound to contain a few typographical errors, although the facts themselves remain accurate.
If you download this document, my only request is that you share it with other folks by linking them back to this site. And finally, there is an advertisement to the left of this page that features a raffle to help fight cancer. Please pitch in a few bucks, if you can. It’s excellent karma.
