Qian Janice Wang named Master of Wine – the first residing in Denmark

Having passed the third, and final, stage of the famously challenging exam process, Qian Janice Wang has now achieved the highest of honors in the world of wine: She is now officially a Master of Wine, awarded by The Institute of Masters of Wine. She is also the first Master of Wine residing in Denmark. The programme has existed for over 70 years.

Janice’s achievement is particularly remarkable, as she completed the three-stage programme in almost the shortest possible time frame, having begun it just four years ago. Each stage of exam is notoriously difficult to pass – so much so that there are currently only 420 Masters of Wine in the world today.

“The stage 2 exam in my cohort of students, which is a 4-day exam, only had a 13% pass rate. And that includes people who have previously attempted the exam. We were just four people who passed on the first attempt. So, from a personal perspective, I’m really happy about becoming a Master of Wine in a relatively quick way,” says Janice.

Quality over quantity

Janice’s passion for wine started in her early 20’s, living in Seattle in the United States and working as a software engineer at Microsoft. She has always been interested in sensory experiences, and particularly the aspect of smell, so taking wine classes became her go-to choice to pursue that interest.

“I got into wine because of the complexity of the aromas. There are so many interesting aspects of smell in wine. And in formal tastings, you don’t drink the wine, you spit it out. So, it’s all about the sensory experience,” says Janice and adds:

“The funny thing is that I’m actually allergic to alcohol. But it fits well with my desire to experience these great wines, because if I can only have one glass, it better be expensive!”

Having advanced through all the available levels of wine tasting courses in Seattle, Janice picked up her professional interest in wine again after moving to UK to do her PhD in Experimental Psychology at Oxford. 

Here, she joined the Oxford University Blind Wine Tasting Society in her first year, initially in an attempt to recruit trained tasters for her experiments. In her second year, she became the president of the Oxford Wine Tasting Society and team captain of the varsity team that competed against their Cambridge counterparts in blind tasting.

“So, even before I joined a Food Science department, where taste tests are one of the key research areas, I had spent a lot of time setting up blind tastings. I organized something in the range of 60-70 wine tastings a year in my roles in the Oxford Wine Tasting Society,” says Janice.

Bridge between two worlds

The third stage exam to become a Master of Wine is centered on a Research Paper (RP). Here, Janice took full advantage of her academic area of expertise and focused on how people perceive and describe acidity in wine. The work also includes a chemical analysis of the wines alongside a sensory evaluation, online questionnaire, and an in-person tasting experiment conducted in Copenhagen and London. The Research Paper can be found here.

Much like in the research paper, Janice hopes that her new title as Master of Wine can bridge the gap between the wine trade and academic research on wine tasting and the senses.

“Wine professionals don’t necessarily understand sensory science, while many researchers don’t really grasp the commercial realities of the wine world. So, what I really want to do is to be a bridge between academia and the wine trade, because knowledge can flow both ways. I can use my wine expertise to increase the real-world relevance of academic research, and I can disseminate sensory research to help wine experts get better at tasting,” says Janice.

She has already established solid connections to a range of wine producers around the world, and she is aiming to use her new credentials to put both Denmark and in particular the University of Copenhagen on the map of wine research expertise.

“On a personal level, achieving the MW title is something I’ve wanted since I was 23. But the Institute of Masters of Wine says that earning comes with a responsibility to serve and improve the world of wine. That mission is just as big a driver for me. I want to promote this university as a place that does excellent wine research, and I want to make sure that young people in Denmark who are passionate about wine know they can come here to study it,” ends Janice.