Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET)
From The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails
is a London-based organization that offers education and training in a variety of wine, sake, and spirits topics for bartenders and sommeliers as well as the general public. WSET administers four levels of credentials, ranging from Level 1 Awards in wine or spirits, given after one-day classes, to the Level 4 Diploma, which requires extensive study in six different subject areas. As of 2015, classes are given in fifteen languages in seventy countries around the world, with more than sixty thousand candidates seeking qualifications annually (a Hong Kong office opened in 2016 and an American one in 2019).
The organization was founded in 1969 as an offshoot of the UK trade group the Wine & Spirit Association, and its board of trustees today includes representatives from that group as well as the Worshipful Company of Vintners, the Worshipful Company of Distillers, and the Institute of Masters of Wine.
Wine & Spirit Education Trust website. https://www.wsetglobal.com/ (accessed March 15, 2021).
By: Jason Horn
This definition is from The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich (Editor-in-Chief) and Noah Rothbaum (Associate Editor).