WSET Level 3 Award in Wines

The WSET Level 3 Award in Wines is WSET’s advanced wine qualification. It goes into the key factors in wine production (location, grape growing, winemaking, maturation and bottling), how they shape the still, sparkling and fortified wines of the world, and how to explain wine style and quality, together with tasting and evaluating wines using WSET’s Level 3 Systematic Approach to Tasting. WSET awards are voluntary professional qualifications: the certificates a yacht job actually requires are STCW Basic Safety Training and a seafarer medical such as the ENG1.

Online study, in-person exam

Unlike Levels 1 and 2, Level 3 cannot be finished from a cabin: WSET requires Level 3 candidates to sit the exam in person. You can study online, but you must travel to the exam. WSET School London teaches it on WSET’s Online Classroom, with the tasting tutorial and the exam at the school, 39-45 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF; wines are not included and you need to taste at least 21. Florida Wine Academy runs nine modules over nine weeks, recommends about ten hours of study a week, and holds the exam in person in Miami on set dates, after the course ends and within a year of the start date.

The exam

Florida Wine Academy describes two units: Unit 1 is a closed-book exam of 50 multiple-choice questions and a short written answer paper, and Unit 2 is a blind tasting of two wines. Plan leave around the exam date before you book, because the tutorial and exam days are fixed.

Prices

Published online prices are £755 at WSET School London and $1,099 at Florida Wine Academy; Florida’s page does not say whether the exam fee is included. The Wandering Wine School does not list Level 3. If you are starting out, WSET Level 1 and WSET Level 2 can both be completed fully online.

For interior crew: see the interior career pathway, interior and stewardess training and the wider wine, food and beverage courses in the directory. Facts on this page come from each school’s own website and from wsetglobal.com, read on 21 October 2026.