Why You Don’t Need to be Afraid of D2
The WSET Diploma’s Wine Business unit, aka D2, is the second unit in the two-year program and comes after the first unit on viticulture and winemaking. The idea of intensively studying global wine business can seem intimidating, but as a Napa Valley Wine Academy diploma student, you don’t need to be afraid of D2. Instead, you can actually get excited about knowing how the business side of the industry works! Here’s why:
We have top-notch study resources available to help you. All of our Diploma classes are held live on zoom, and they are also recorded. So if you have to miss a class or want to watch it again later to review, you can! Not sure how to do a SWOT analysis? Never heard of the 5 Ps? Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of practice in class. We also offer flashcards, vocab lists and worksheets to get you thinking about other ways to relate to the D2 material outside of the book. Adult learners retain information best by seeing it multiple times, so the more ways you can think about something, the more likely you are to remember it, and our proprietary online classroom is set up to help you!
We help you prepare for the exam, not just study the book. Diploma exams are designed to put you under a lot of time pressure, and the WSET has specific command verbs and ways of phrasing questions that can help you understand how to answer the questions – but only if you understand those verbal clues. We offer full D2 mock exams so you can practice answering exam questions, as well as grading rubrics so you can see what an examiner would be looking for in each question. Plus you can join twice-weekly office hours with our Diploma Program Director, Noelle Hale. No matter what your Diploma question is, she’ll either know or be able to find an answer!
Got an exam date conflict? You can move your exam date. While the WSET sets most Diploma exam dates globally, not all APPs are able to offer every exam date because there are minimum size requirements. Fortunately NVWA is large enough that we can offer every available exam date. If you let us know with enough notice (before we’ve sent the WSET our official list of who’s taking an exam), it’s easy to move you to another available exam date. So if you’re originally scheduled to take the D2 exam in October 2023, but you’re a winemaker who will be in the middle of harvest or a sales rep who will be in the middle of OND, don’t worry! We also have D2 exams available in January and March 2024, so you can get some extra time to study before exam day.
Not working in the wine industry isn’t a handicap. The wine industry is truly global and encompasses many facets of business, from science and sales to marketing and logistics. Even if you don’t work in the wine industry, you’ll be able to contribute something helpful to class — one of the most enjoyable parts of D2 is hearing from your fellow students.
If you’re willing to put in the work for D2, we’re here to help you succeed! You can register here today. If you have questions, feel free to email diploma@napavalleywineacademy.com, and our Diploma team is happy to get you answers!