Written for candidates preparing for CMS or WSET tasting examinations.
Curate offers the blind tasting note builder in three WSET formats — Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 (Diploma) — each mirroring the scope and underlying process of that level's Systematic Approach to Tasting. The builder follows Curate's own design language and is visually distinct from WSET-provided documents; the alignment is in what is asked and in what order, not in typography.
The Additive Ladder
The three formats are one ladder, not three silos: nothing is removed as levels ascend. Level 3 is Level 2 with more asked; Level 4 is Level 3 with the Diploma's additions. A candidate moving up meets familiar ground plus the new — exactly as the SATs themselves progress.
Every level works appearance (color and intensity), nose (condition — clean, unclean, faulty — intensity, and the aroma clusters), palate (sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, flavor intensity, finish), and conclusions (quality assessment, and a readiness or ageability call). Aromas are chosen from SAT-shaped clusters — green, citrus, stone, and tropical fruit for whites; red and black fruit for reds; florals, herbs, and spice; oak; the deliberate-oxidation, fruit-development, and bottle-age registers — with a search for anything beyond them, gathered in the note's Outside-of-SAT Aromas area.
Level 3 adds the finer instruments: other observations at sight (deposit, bubbles, pétillance), a nose-development scale (youthful → fully developed → tired), fruit development split from bottle age in the tertiary read, a mousse scale for sparkling, and five-step structural scales with medium-minus and medium-plus where Level 2 keeps to three steps.
Level 4 adds the Diploma's edge: a tannin nature vocabulary (silky, fine-grained, chalky, green, austere, and their kin), the key questions — flavor-profile judgments like delicate/intense, simple/complex, fresh/cooked, and the dominant flavor source and presentation — and bottle ageability as the conclusion's binary call, replacing the drinking-readiness scale of Levels 2 and 3.
Conclusions Are Optional — Deliberately
Grape variety, country, region, and vintage conclusions are optional at every WSET level; only the quality assessment and the readiness/ageability call are required before saving. Skipped conclusions simply go ungraded in Study Reports rather than counting against you — the format lets you practice the SAT's descriptive discipline without forcing the identification game WSET itself doesn't always require.
Session Tools
All three formats run with the Variable Timer and Progress Panel as configured. Tasting context, environment, and the shared details cards remain available around the grid, and Flaws & Defects is reachable from the session's tools. After the reveal, link the wine to grade what you did conclude.
Dictation and Voice Control belong to the CMS Advanced/Master plan and don't apply to the WSET formats — see Plans & What They Include.
Curate is an independent software provider, not affiliated with the Court of Master Sommeliers or the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, nor endorsed by either.