A map-first, visual study tool for WSET Level 3 wine certification.
I'm studying for WSET Level 3 and discovered that every wine study app treats wine knowledge as text-based trivia. Flashcard apps ask "What is Burgundy's climate?" and expect you to recall a word. But wine is inherently spatial and visual — understanding why Merlot dominates Bordeaux's Right Bank requires seeing the clay soils, understanding the maritime climate, and connecting that to winemaking decisions.
The existing tools fail because they:
- Treat regions as isolated facts rather than connected systems
- Lack visual/spatial context (maps, climate overlays, soil relationships)
- Test recall instead of understanding
- Scatter information across flashcards with no coherent mental model
Terroir Study is map-first and connection-oriented. Instead of memorising facts in isolation, you learn why each region works the way it does — from climate through to glass.
🗺️ Explore — Click any region on the map of France, Italy, Spain, Germany or the New World, then Zoom into it to see its villages and districts marked where they really are. Print summary gives a one-page revision sheet for the region on screen. See climate, soils, grapes, winemaking, and style in context. Browse sub-regions, grape varieties, and quality hierarchies.
🔗 Connect — The core differentiator. For each region, see the full chain: Climate → Soil → Grapes → Winemaking → Style. Understand why Champagne uses chalk soils, why Alsace is dry despite being northerly, why Chenin Blanc can be made in every style.
✦ Quiz — Three question types that test understanding, not just recall. Questions cover every region in the app, and the map switches to the country of the question:
- Map questions — "Click the region famous for galets"
- Connection questions — "Why is Merlot dominant on the Right Bank?"
- Scenario questions — "A Champagne producer wants a richer style. What would they do?"
Study everything or one country at a time, switch on Due only to drill just the questions you got wrong recently, and click any weak area to jump to that region's notes. On a multiple-choice question, press 1 to 4 to answer and Enter for the next one.
🍷 Taste — Tasting practice without a glass. The app names a wine it knows ("You are tasting: Nebbiolo from Piedmont"). You set its body, acidity and, for reds, tannin to low, medium or high, and tick the aromas you expect from eight words (the grape's own plus a few from other grapes of the same colour). Press Check and each row is marked against the grape profile, the aroma words turn green (right), red (wrong pick) or gold (missed), and a short "Why" card explains the answer from the grape and the region. Click a region on the map to taste a wine from there. This is the exam's Systematic Approach to Tasting, cut down to what the app has data for.
France (11 WSET L3 exam regions) with geographically accurate map, Paris as orientation marker, and major rivers:
- Bordeaux — Left Bank / Right Bank, Cabernet Sauvignon & Merlot blends
- Burgundy — Chablis through Mâconnais, Pinot Noir & Chardonnay terroir expression
- Northern Rhône — Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Syrah on steep granite slopes
- Southern Rhône — Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Grenache-based blends, galets
- Loire Valley — Muscadet, Vouvray, Sancerre, Chenin Blanc versatility
- Alsace — Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Vosges rain shadow
- Champagne — Chalk soils, méthode traditionnelle, marginal climate
- Languedoc-Roussillon — Bulk to quality revolution, Vin Doux Naturel
- Provence — Rosé capital, Bandol Mourvèdre
- South-West — Cahors Malbec, Madiran Tannat, micro-oxygenation origin
- Beaujolais — Gamay, 10 Crus on granite, carbonic maceration
Italy (4 WSET L3 exam areas) with its own map, Rome as orientation marker, the Po, and Sicily and Sardinia drawn in outline:
- Piedmont — Nebbiolo in Barolo and Barbaresco, Barbera, Dolcetto, Moscato d'Asti, Gavi; fog, Alps and calcareous marl
- Tuscany — Sangiovese from Chianti to Brunello, Bolgheri and the Super Tuscan story, galestro and alberese
- Veneto — Corvina and appassimento (Valpolicella, Ripasso, Amarone, Recioto), Soave, Prosecco by the tank method
- Southern Italy — Aglianico (Taurasi, Vulture), Fiano and Greco, Primitivo and Negroamaro, Etna and Marsala; heat moderated by altitude and sea
Spain (4 WSET L3 exam areas) with its own map, Madrid as orientation marker, the Ebro, and Portugal drawn in outline:
- Rioja — Tempranillo blends across Rioja Alta, Alavesa and Oriental; the Cantabrian shield, clay-limestone, and the Crianza–Reserva–Gran Reserva oak ladder
- Ribera del Duero — Tempranillo (Tinto Fino) at altitude on the Duero plateau; hot days, cold nights, frost, and darker, firmer wines than Rioja
- Priorat — Old-vine Garnacha and Cariñena on licorella slate terraces; tiny yields, concentrated reds, DOQ status
- Sherry (Jerez) — Palomino on albariza; Fino and Manzanilla under flor, Oloroso oxidative, Amontillado between, Pedro Ximénez sweet; the solera system
Germany (3 WSET L3 exam regions) with its own map, Berlin as orientation marker, the Rhine and the Mosel, and the neighbouring countries drawn faintly:
- Mosel — Riesling on steep, south-facing slate above the river; cool, light, high-acid, off-dry to sweet; the Prädikat ladder from Kabinett to Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein
- Rheingau — Riesling where the Rhine turns west; warmer and drier, fuller dry wines and VDP Grosses Gewächs; Spätburgunder at Assmannshausen; botrytis sweet wines
- Pfalz — warm and dry in the rain shadow of the Haardt (the Vosges continued); riper dry Riesling, Grauburgunder, Weissburgunder, Spätburgunder, Dornfelder
New World (6 WSET L3 countries, one region each) sharing one map:
- California — Napa Cabernet, Sonoma Pinot Noir and Zinfandel, Santa Barbara and Paso Robles, Central Valley volume; Pacific fog through gaps in the Coast Ranges decides the style, and an AVA is a place name, not a quality mark
- Australia — Barossa Shiraz from old ungrafted vines, Eden and Clare Riesling at altitude, Coonawarra Cabernet on terra rossa, Hunter Sémillon picked early to age, Margaret River and Yarra; Murray irrigation for volume; the GI system
- New Zealand — Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from long sunny days and cool nights, Central Otago Pinot Noir at the world's southern limit, Hawke's Bay Syrah and Bordeaux blends on the Gimblett Gravels, Martinborough; screwcaps everywhere
- South Africa — Stellenbosch Cabernet and Bordeaux blends, Chenin Blanc as the most planted grape, Pinotage (Pinot Noir × Cinsault), the Benguela current and the Cape Doctor, Walker Bay and Elgin for cool-climate Pinot and Chardonnay, Swartland bush vines; Wine of Origin
- Chile — the Pacific (Humboldt current) and the Andes as the two coolers, Casablanca and San Antonio whites, Maipo Cabernet, Colchagua Carmenère (the Bordeaux grape mistaken for Merlot), Central Valley volume; ungrafted vines, no phylloxera
- Argentina — Mendoza Malbec at altitude (Luján de Cuyo, Uco Valley), desert climate irrigated by Andean meltwater, the zonda wind and hail, thick skins from strong sunlight, Torrontés from high-altitude Salta; Cabernet and Bonarda
France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the New World are built. The quiz covers all of them.
- React 18 — Component-based UI with hooks
- Vite — Fast build tooling
- Custom SVG map — Geographically projected from real lat/lon coordinates (not a library)
- GitHub Pages — Automated deployment via GitHub Actions
- No external UI libraries — All components built from scratch
Your quiz record and tasting results live in the browser you are using and nowhere else. Clearing the browser's site data, or opening the tool on another phone or laptop, starts you from nothing. At the foot of the page, Save progress file downloads everything as one small file, and Restore from file loads it back. Restoring says what is in the file and asks first. It adds to what is already there and keeps the more recent answer for any question in both, so restoring the same file twice changes nothing, and a file that is not a backup, or is damaged, is refused. Clear progress and Clear results need a second click.
You can study without a mouse. Tab moves between the map regions and buttons, and Enter or Space picks one. In the quiz, 1 to 4 answer and Enter moves on. Selected buttons say so out loud, the quiz says "Correct" or gives the right answer in words as well as colour, and animation switches off if your device is set to reduce motion. During a map quiz the region names are kept from screen readers, because the name is the answer.
git clone https://github.com/PKusch/terroir-study.git
cd terroir-study
npm install
npm run dev- Italy (Piedmont, Tuscany, Veneto, Southern Italy)
- Spain (Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat, Sherry)
- Germany (Mosel, Rheingau, Pfalz)
- New World (California, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Argentina)
- Expand quiz bank to 50+ questions (165: 63 France, 24 Italy, 24 Spain, 18 Germany, 36 New World)
- Spaced repetition algorithm for quiz mode
- Grape variety profiles with tasting descriptors (67 grapes)
- Systematic Approach to Tasting (SAT) practice mode (Taste mode: structure and aromas marked against the grape profiles)
- Progress tracking and weak-area identification
- Sub-region drill-down maps (Zoom into any region: 155 places marked across 28 regions)
Built by someone actively studying for WSET Level 3 who got frustrated with existing tools. This is the app I needed but couldn't find.
MIT