I found this more interesting than I anticipated, and would love to discuss it here.
Here’s a great section:
When chatting with Demmond she relayed an encounter she recently had with a sommelier while dining out. During this dining experience Demmond inquired about a wine on the list of which she was unfamiliar. Instead of talking about what he loved about the wine, the sommelier instead took the question as an opportunity to recite all the facts he knew about it. “It seemed that 1. He didn’t appreciate the wine for what it was but for what he knew about it and 2. He had no idea how to help a guest choose between selections – that that wine was ‘30 percent Grenache’ (which it wasn’t) to a lay person wouldn’t tell me at all whether it was juicy or more approachable than the other wine we were interested in. Or whether it made sense for our dish. It seemed like he was more concerned with coming across as being knowledgeable than he was about giving us a great service experience. It was sad.” There is something to be said for thinking too much when it comes to wine, and trying to turn something that should be about relaxation and elevation into a contact sport where the more you know, the better a taster you are.
The focus of the article is how ‘being a sommelier’ is changing, that wine lovers are using it as an excuse to say they know more about wine, which is likely true, and brings a lot of focus on the service aspect of what a sommelier is - something few truly realize.
The article also makes me think about how many people in the service industry don’t want to actually be a part of the front line. I read an article a while back by someone teaching wine courses as a part of a college or university hospitality program. They said they would ask how many people hoped to work on the floor of a restaurant, and very few people raised their hands. The writer wondered why the people were even there. Many people have this dream of becoming the wine director for a prestigious restaurant group or something like that and don’t want to do the work necessary to get there, which includes being really, really excellent at selling wine to the guests. If you aren’t great at it yourself, how could you possibly teach your staff to be great at it?
The quote below sums up my thoughts to a tee. The whole Somm thing, and the M.S. degree especially, has become a real joke IMO. The movie about this summed it up real well. In that the majority of these people taking these tests have no inclination to work in a restaurant at all. Something that was the founding principal of the sommelier organization. The vast majority seem to be striving to work for some large prestigious wine corporation and want nothing to do with a restaurant after they obtain their more advanced degrees.
It seems the main solution to this whole mess would be to stop elevating the sommelier certification as the pinnacle of what it means to be a wine expert. “Attraction to being a sommelier should come from wanting to work in a restaurant, wanting to some day be a beverage director or run a restaurant group,” said Demmond.
The other issue I have is it seems in order to get the M.S. degree one has to kiss the ass of a current Master Somm. It seems that if you make it “in” their group then you pass. If they don’t care for you then you don’t pass as the test is very subjective. IMO the Somm organization should release what wines they serve blind to those being tested. I can guess that the vast majority of those being tested never come close to guessing what the actual wines are. And they should have a mix of various Somm’s and non-Somm’s with high end dinning operation experience doing the ratings.
Great article. Becoming a MS without ever wanting to work a restaurant and serve customers brings to mind my interactions with med students who sometimes chose to pursue non patient care fields.
In the end, not knowing what the wines were that you tasted may seem a bit conterintuitive to the whole blind tasting test. However, the test is not a contest, or a blind tasting competition. For the CMS as others it is based on deductive tasting. If you have tasted your wine and your assesment of it is logical through the grid you can make a wrong turn but still make a good call on what the wine may be. Depending on what level you are testing for it may be enough to have displayed the knowledge to make the call.
How many history majors who are not historians? Or art majors who are not artists? Biology majors who are not biologists?
This is something inherent to all of academia. What this article tells me is that people are passionate about wine and these programs provide a formal means of learning. Maybe this merely an indication that sommelier schools are being elevated from trade schools into more conventional places of learning.
Many industries that require certifications and formal education suffer from these same problems. Individuals are put into a position to make decisions about their career before ever having first hand experience. Just think about the viticulture and enology programs in college with students who are fresh out of high school. Unlike other systems (apprenticeship), the education presumably comes before the practice rather than just “through” practice. However over time, those who don’t have the ability typically get vetted out eventually.
As for matters of service - I often wonder if this is simply a function of personality. No amount of technical learning can make one great in service, but rather an attitude or state of mind that finds satisfaction in others enjoyment/serving others. It can be difficult for places of learning to make these determinations - their role is to teach. Ultimately the industry will determine whether or not they’re suited for their position.
I don’t personally find the Master Sommelier program silly though. I think there is something to be said about dedicating oneself to one field or body of knowledge. But again its significance in terms of practice ultimately comes down to the individual.
I haven’t pursued any CMS certifications, but I do taste regularly with quite a few people who have and continue to. Having talked to them, as well as a couple of people who have the MS, pretty extensively about the process (so people on both sides of the table), I completely disagree with all of this. I really wonder where you’ve gotten these ideas. First, the testing is not very subjective at all. For theory, you have mastered the subjects being asked about or you haven’t. For tasting, you’ve correctly assessed the wines to whatever degree necessary or you haven’t. Service, even more cut and dry. I attended a boot camp for people preparing for Advanced and MS, led by an MS, and the people who were going to take the MS exam soon were tasting extremely accurately and consistently through most of the all-day event (not so much by the last flight, but it was a grueling 8-hour day of blind tasting, so fatigue was likely setting in). I’ve heard more than one MS say that if it were some kind of popularity contest, as is sometimes claimed by people who haven’t passed, they wouldn’t have gotten in. Those statements seemed completely candid and weren’t in the context of defending anything. If it were about ass-kissing, how would one have any idea whose ass to kiss? There are multiple different MS’s proctoring the different exams, a different set of people each time, so there would be no surefire strategy there. I don’t even know what to make of the idea that some people evaluating the examination shouldn’t have attained the certification; I honestly can’t imagine why that would make sense.
This seems to be a problem in (higher) education as well. There are many paths in life, but paper certification seems to bestow a more reverential kowtow than if you arrive at your station organically. Oh, that and the attraction of Big Bucks.
The test is very subjective by the raters. As a significant portion of the exam is not a written test where you’re answering questions. It’s subjective by the raters as most of it’s a practical exam. Since part of it is service related why do you need a current MS title holder to be an evaluator? Do you not think that the owner or head of a high end restaurant couldn’t do the same? Do you think Thomas Keller (owner of teh French Laundry) isn’t qualified to rate the MS candidates for a portion of their test?
There are currently about 219 Master Somm’s in the world, 140 of those in North America (at least one is deceased and probably safe to say a few no longer active in their fields). That’s a small amount of people. From everything I’ve seen MS candidates study to some degree under the eye of a current MS. Do you not think the current MS’ don’t ever talk to each other about the candidates? If you don’t then I’ve got a bridge to sell you. I’ve worked in organizations larger than that and everyone knew everyone and everyone knew who was getting promoted and who wasn’t long before the lists came out. There are large egos involved and, while no current MS holder will probably ever admit it, you can’t tell me personality clashes don’t factor into the exam results.
Many of these certification bodies are promoting their sommelier certifications as being a good education for hobbyists as well as anyone looking to get into the wine industry from any angle, not just restaurant service. I think the definition of what a sommelier is and what they do is changing. From reading the websites of these certification entities I get the feeling that they themselves are diversifying as a way to bring more people to their classes and grow their business.
I’ve found that in many customer-centric restaurants if I am uncertain which of two wines to order from the by-the-glass list, the server will allow me to taste a bit of each and then make my decision. And more restaurants now offer flights of small pours of three different wines which also helps to find one I like and that will pair well with my appetizer and/or entree. Slightly off topic, but a good suggestion for restaurants that want to increase their wine sales.
Once a (gorgeous) young lady at the booth of an organic producer of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo at VinItaly was touting her cantina as “the only organic producer” in the DOC. We objected that we worked with Emidio Pepe who was damn near prehistoric in his methods but is also the last guy who is going to let anyone else speak for him about them. She retorted “But we are the only CERTIFIED organic producer!”
Our then import director asked her “you know…to the naked eye, you LOOK beautiful but are you CERTIFIED beautiful?” and she just sputtered as we walked away to another stand. The next day she nearly chased us down in the hallway to tell us that we had made her think a lot about things and that, yes, SR Pepe was absolutely organic and needed no one to stamp their approval on that.
Michael then pronounced her “Certifiably GORGEOUS!” and we all had a good laugh…
Several commenters on the article mentioned the part about the young lady who choked on her Certified Exam. Very instructive, and yes, I can relate (about the not passing part, not about the willingness to put in Hard Time in a restaurant part).
But that’s not the Money Quote in the article. This one is:
Wine enthusiast culture is nothing new, this demographic of wine consumer has always been a part of American wine, with current data showing they represent about ten percent of all wine drinkers. But what they lack in numbers, since the majority of wine drinkers make up the remaining 90 percent, they make up for in volume.
THIS is the mystery to me. WHY is the “Enthusiast” number so low? Is it because we have conditioned ourselves as a culture into thinking that wine is this “One Percent” thing? Are entities such as The Court bothered that ninety percent of the public views wine in such a “grab one on the way out/afterthought” kind of way?