Q: Do I need my D1 results before I can start D2?
A: No, and this matters more than it sounds. D1 papers are marked in London and results take about three months, so waiting for them would cost you an entire term. You need to have completed the D1 course — not to have received a result. Enroll in D2 as soon as your D1 course has finished. If your D1 exam date happens to fall after your D2 course begins, check with us first so we can confirm your sequencing.
Q: Can I take the D1 and D2 courses at the same time?
A: No. The courses run sequentially: you work through D1, then start D2. What you do not have to wait for is your D1 result — see the previous answer.
Q: I haven't taken D1 at all. Can I start here?
A: No. WSET's specification requires the D1 examination to be sat before any other unit, so D1 is always the entry point to the Diploma. Start with D1 Wine Production, then come back to D2. If you are planning both, see the bundle question below.
Q: Do I need to be working in the wine trade?
A: No. Plenty of our Diploma students are serious enthusiasts rather than industry professionals. What you do need is the WSET Level 3 Award in Wines and a completed D1, because the Diploma is a professional-level qualification and D2 assumes you already understand how wine is made and sold.
Q: What does the $849 include?
A: Four live instructor-led Zoom classes of two hours each, all recorded; twice-weekly open office hours with our Diploma Program Director; WSET's D2 digital textbook; our own online classroom with vocabulary lists, worksheets, dozens of mock questions and the chance to have written answers graded; and registration for your D2 examination. D2 is the least expensive examined unit in the Diploma.
Q: Is the $450 WSET candidate registration charged again on D2?
A: No. That fee is paid once, with your first unit, which is always D1, and it covers you for three years across all six units. D2 is $849 and that is the whole price. If you have not yet enrolled in D1, the registration will be charged there rather than here.
Q: Is there a cheaper way to take D1 and D2 together?
A: Yes. The D1 & D2 Bundle is $2,296 and includes the $450 candidate registration. Bought separately those three items come to $2,496 — D1 at $1,197, D2 at $849 and the registration at $450 — so the bundle saves you $200. You still choose your own cohort dates for each unit.
Q: What is not included in the price?
A: Travel to Napa for the examination, and a resit at $250 if you need one. That is genuinely the whole list — see the next answer for the one cost D2 does not have.
Q: Do I need to buy wine for D2?
A: No — and D2 is the only unit in the Diploma where that is true. There is no wine kit, no recommended bottle list and no tasting component in the examination. Every other examined unit expects wine in front of you; D2 is pure business, so the sticker price is the real price. If you have been pacing your Diploma spending, this is the cheap term.
Q: What does the schedule actually look like?
A: Four live classes on Zoom, every other Wednesday from 5 to 7 PM Pacific, with the examination roughly two weeks after the final class — about ten weeks from start to exam day. Cohorts and their exam dates are listed in the What's Included section on this page.
Q: Why does D2 have four classes when D1 had eight?
A: Because D2 carries 10% of the Diploma against D1's 20%. The teaching is scaled to the weighting, and so is the price and the exam — a 60-minute paper here against 90 minutes for D1. D2 is the shortest and least expensive examined unit, which makes it a sensible one to slot into a busy stretch of the year.
Q: Are the classes recorded, and what if I miss one?
A: All four are recorded and posted in the online classroom on the next business day. With only four sessions in the unit, though, missing one live is a bigger share of the teaching than it would be on D1 — attend where you can, and bring anything you picked up on a recording to office hours.
Q: How much study time should I plan?
A: About 50 hours across the ten weeks, so roughly five hours a week, of which eight are the live classes. That is consistent with WSET's Total Qualification Time of 500 hours across the six units and D2's 10% weighting. It is the lightest examined unit in the Diploma, but it is still a Level 4 qualification.
Q: Is the course taught online or in Napa?
A: The teaching is entirely online — every class is on Zoom, every resource is in our online classroom, and you can study D2 from anywhere in the world. Only the examination is in person, in Napa, California. See the exam questions at the bottom of this page before you enroll.
Q: Why are classes in the evening?
A: Because most Diploma students are working in the trade. A 5 to 7 PM Pacific slot lands after the working day on the West Coast and is workable on the East Coast at 8 to 10 PM. Every session is recorded if neither suits.
Q: What does D2 actually cover?
A: The commercial reality behind the bottle: what drives the price of wine, how supply and demand behave in a market where the product takes years to make, the kinds of businesses involved in growing, making, shipping and selling wine, the routes a wine can take from producer to point of sale, and how wine is marketed and branded. If D1 explained why a wine tastes the way it does, D2 explains why it costs what it costs.
Q: Is this useful if I don't work in sales or marketing?
A: Yes, and arguably more so. D2 is the unit that explains the trade you are standing in — why your distributor behaves the way it does, why a producer's allocation policy exists, why the same wine carries different prices in different markets. Sommeliers and buyers routinely say it changed how they read a wine list. It is also directly applicable if you are moving toward management, brand or commercial roles.
Q: What materials do I get?
A: WSET's official D2 digital textbook, plus our own online classroom built for Diploma students: vocabulary lists, worksheets, dozens of mock questions, and the opportunity to submit written answers for grading. That last one is the one to use — D2 is marked on open-response writing, and knowing the material is not the same as writing it the way an examiner rewards.
Q: Are there extra study tools I can buy?
A: Our D2 Wine Business practice questions are $69 and give you additional exam-style questions. Everything you need to pass is already in the course; the practice set is for students who want more repetitions before exam day.
Q: Who teaches D2?
A: Noelle Hale, DipWSET, who has taught for the Academy since 2017, completed her own Diploma in 2019, has run our Diploma program since 2021 and is currently a Master of Wine student; and Jonathan Frost, DipWSET, a current Master of Wine candidate with more than a decade in the industry. Both have sat the papers they are teaching you to pass.
Q: Can I get help outside the scheduled classes?
A: Yes — twice-weekly open office hours with Noelle Hale, our Diploma Program Director, for the length of the course. No appointment, no topic limit. On a four-session unit that support matters proportionally more, because there is less classroom time in which to raise something.
Q: What comes after D2?
A: Once D1 and D2 are sat you can take D3 Wines of the World — half the Diploma's total weighting on its own — along with D4 Sparkling Wines and D5 Fortified Wines. D6, the Independent Research Assignment, may be started at any point once you are enrolled. See the full Diploma pathway, pricing and study hours.
Q: Should I do D2 before or after D3?
A: Before. D3 is the largest unit in the Diploma at 50% of the weighting and demands the most preparation, so most students clear the two short units first and give D3 an uninterrupted run. Taking D2 immediately after D1 also keeps your momentum while the study habit is fresh.
Q: Can I cancel or move to a later cohort?
A: Yes, if you act at least 14 business days before your course start date. Cancellations in that window are refunded as store credit after a $50 administration fee plus the cost of any study materials and exam fees already committed. One transfer per person per course is permitted, on the same deadline and the same fee. Inside 14 business days, or once the course has started, no refunds or transfers are available. Full terms are on our General Policies page.
Q: Can I talk to someone before enrolling?
A: Yes. Email support@napavalleywineacademy.com and our team will confirm where you are in the Diploma, which cohort fits your calendar, and how to sequence your D1 and D2 exam trips to Napa. Travel is the part of the Diploma most worth planning early.
Q: Do I have to travel to Napa to sit the exam?
A: Yes. The D2 examination is sat in person in Napa, California — it is not available online or at a remote center. Travel is the one cost of the Diploma that is easy to underestimate, so choose your exam date early and book around it.
Q: Can I sit the D1 and D2 exams on the same day?
A: No. Each Diploma unit is examined at its own sitting, so D1 and D2 mean two separate trips to Napa. Plan for that from the outset rather than discovering it late — it is the single most common budgeting surprise on the Diploma. If travel is the binding constraint on your schedule, email us and our Diploma Program Director will help you sequence your units around it.
Q: What is the format of the exam?
A: A closed-book, 60-minute open-response paper — half an hour shorter than D1, matching the unit's smaller weighting. Questions are typically multi-part and ask you to explain a commercial mechanism rather than recall a fact: why a price moves, why a route to market suits a particular producer, what a marketing decision is intended to achieve. There is no multiple choice and no tasting.
Q: When are the D2 exams?
A: You are automatically registered for the next available sitting in Napa when you enroll, and can change it from the Exam Options page inside your course. Currently scheduled sittings are 20 October 2026, 20 January 2027, 3 March 2027, 9 June 2027 and 19 October 2027 — four opportunities in a typical academic year, more than any other Diploma unit.
Q: What score do I need to pass?
A: 55%. WSET grades every Diploma unit on the same scale: a Pass at 55% to 64%, a Pass with Merit at 65% to 74%, and a Pass with Distinction at 75% or above. You need at least a pass in every one of the six units — a Distinction elsewhere cannot carry a fail here.
Q: How long do results take?
A: About three months. Papers are sent to WSET's headquarters in London and marked there, and results are issued by email. Do not hold up your next unit waiting for them: you can enroll in and complete further units while a result is outstanding.
Q: What happens if I don't pass?
A: You resit the paper, and WSET places no limit on the number of attempts at a unit. You do not repurchase the course — your classroom access and materials remain. A D2 resit is $250 and is booked as a separate sitting in Napa, currently 20 October 2026, 20 January 2027, 3 March 2027, 9 June 2027 and 19 October 2027, all 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific.
Q: What is your Diploma pass rate?
A: 78.6% of Diploma unit exams sat by our students are passed — 2,040 from 2,595 graded sittings between 2019 and 2026. That is a per-unit figure across all six units, not the proportion of candidates who complete the full Diploma, and it is deliberately a harder number than the rates quoted at Levels 1 to 3. Our WSET pass rates page carries the methodology.
Q: What do I get for passing D2?
A: 10% of the WSET Level 4 Diploma, and the clearance to sit D3, D4 and D5. The Diploma itself is awarded only when all six units are passed, at which point you may use the post-nominal DipWSET. Passes carry over within your three-year candidacy, so a unit cleared is a unit banked.
