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<\/p>\nI don’t know if any of you have been following the scandal at the court, but I’ll fill you in.\u00a0 The Court Of Master Sommeliers is an organization that certifies people as wine experts.\u00a0 With the upper tiers of the certifications that the court offers comes higher salaries in the world of wine.\u00a0 Recently, a master sommelier within the court was caught cheating with some folks taking the master exam.\u00a0 Whoops!<\/p>\n
My own story with the court starts about fourteen years ago when I entered.\u00a0 The court doesn’t offer any study beyond the two day introduction that preceeds the first exam and it’s sparse at best.\u00a0 I remember it being in Traverse City, Michigan.\u00a0 I traveled there with a friend, also taking the exam.\u00a0 We arrived at the motel closest to the exam site on a Sunday and the newspaper headline was, “KKK Flies Flag At Community Picnic”.\u00a0 The subtitle read, “No one cared”.\u00a0 Good times.\u00a0 Of course, I inquired about this to the girl behind the desk who told me that the head of her neighborhood watch was “clan”.\u00a0 Oookkkaaayyy.\u00a0 Where was this court of masters whosywhatsit taking us, anyway?\u00a0 As we drove to a restaurant past lovely manicured homes, I looked past all the gorgeous tulips and saw many lawn jockeys in black face adorning front entrances.\u00a0 Yikes.\u00a0 Did no one at the court scope out the lay of the land first?!\u00a0 It struck me as an embarrasing oversight.<\/p>\n
At the exam, I was one of two females in the room in a sea of men.\u00a0 There were at least a hundred people there.\u00a0 Being the only woman has become common for me.\u00a0 I’ve always found myself in male dominated industries, so I was not surprised.\u00a0 And I did pass.\u00a0 So that was cool.\u00a0 But the thing that stood out for me was listening to a bunch of men pontificating about their wine knowledge.\u00a0 Listen, the main thing I’ve learned about wine in the twenty something years that I’ve been involved in it, is how little I know about wine.\u00a0 I tell people that all the time.\u00a0 Wine is a constant journey that you learn from continuously.\u00a0 It’s as fluid as the wine itself and it endlessly evolves just the same as any bottled vintage.<\/p>\n
Now, to take the next level exam, the court requires that you spend some time doing “service”.\u00a0 Um.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 Service.\u00a0 Basically, I had to go be a waitress.\u00a0 I was incredulous.\u00a0 Here I was, thirty three years old at the time, and applying for a food service job.\u00a0 And let me tell you, I am the worst waitress ever.\u00a0 I hadn’t waited tables since I was a teenager working graveyard at some crappy pancake house in the ghetto I escaped from.\u00a0 A poor unsuspecting French restaurant on the strip in Las Vegas rolled the dice on me and away I went, turning down food substitutions left and right.\u00a0 Oh, did you want a glass of the house white?\u00a0 Sorry, not in my station.\u00a0 But I can bring you the Drouhin Chardonnay!\u00a0 Big smile.\u00a0 Or I can seat you someplace else.\u00a0 Still smiling.\u00a0 Ching!<\/p>\n
My wine sales on the lunch shift were as high as some of the dinner shift servers.\u00a0 I sashayed wine all over that restaurant in my compression socks and sensible shoes.\u00a0 I developed a list of regulars that loved my salty attitude about slinging crepes.\u00a0 Soon, I was shuffled upstairs to work as a sommelier after breaking in as a wine runner.\u00a0 I left over ethics or rather to keep mine in tact.\u00a0 It was a lot of men behaving badly.\u00a0 Five other somms worked there and most of them were drunks with shocking scruples.\u00a0 Let me just say this….if you ever take an expensive bottle of wine to a restaurant, do not let your somm open your bottle any other place than at your table.\u00a0 And make sure you get the sediment pour.\u00a0 I’m just sayin’.\u00a0 There’s a possibility that someone somewhere in the wine world is going to read this and give me crap about it, but I really don’t care.\u00a0 I’ve made my own way and I’ll continue to do so on my own terms, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
When I realized that selling wine table side to tacky rich people that treat the help poorly with colleagues who were perpetually hung over was not my bag, I started to look elsewhere.\u00a0 This is not how I had envisioned my career shift into wine.\u00a0 So I moved to Oregon.\u00a0 I had hoped to continue with the court when suddenly they changed the rules.\u00a0 Now they gave you a time limit in between exams.\u00a0 But wait!\u00a0 I was busy cramming six years of wine college into three years….hey, I was a single mom and I didn’t have six years to blow….surely I would be grandfathered in?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 If I wanted to continue with the court, I would have to start at the beginning.\u00a0 I was sad.\u00a0 Ok, I was a little pissed off.\u00a0 But I couldn’t dwell because I was whisked off into grape growing, wine making, and selling craft beer (of all things) for the years following.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That brings us to today.\u00a0 There’s around 270~ish master sommeliers in the court, maybe a few more.\u00a0 On the whole planet.\u00a0 Only 25 or so are women.\u00a0 That’s a sad number.\u00a0 The court certified it’s first master somm in 1973.\u00a0 The first woman wasn’t until 1987, and one more in 1989.\u00a0 Since then there’s been a smattering of women, but not many.\u00a0 So, when I read about this cheating scandal, which everyone is talking about, it’s hard not to roll my eyes.\u00a0 The whole exam program is independent study and then you pay them to take the next level exam, which many have to take multiple times the higher you go and they aren’t cheap.<\/p>\n
The court encourages you to be mentored by masters in the court.\u00a0 Well, as a woman, I can tell you “mentoring” by other men in higher positions than you was a lot like today’s internet dating.\u00a0 Without the actual date part.\u00a0 It was a lot of paying for wine and listening to them talk about themselves.\u00a0 No thanks.\u00a0 I learned nothing, except a reaffirmation of what I already knew.\u00a0 It was a man’s world, this court of “masters”.\u00a0 And that whole coy thing men do when they know you need them for something had gotten increasingly tired the older I got.\u00a0 It’s boring.\u00a0 They always expected a little flash of cleavage, a little leg, maybe some fawning over their knowledge.\u00a0 Many were married and still acting like frat boys.\u00a0 What a yawn.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The details of the scandal?\u00a0 Apparently, a master somm who works (or used to before this happened) at Youngs Market….a major wine distributor *wink wink*…passed some answers to the blind tasting to some of his proteges on the master exam (remember that mentoring thing), an exam you have to be invited to, by the way.\u00a0 You don’t get to choose to take that exam on your own.\u00a0 It has an 8% pass rate.\u00a0 I’ve seen no less than 15 articles on it so far and everyone seems so shocked.\u00a0 Ha!\u00a0 I find that humorous.\u00a0 What?!\u00a0 Men behaving badly?!\u00a0 No!\u00a0 You don’t say?!\u00a0 Insert my dramatic eye rolling here.\u00a0 Because this kind of thing isn’t new.\u00a0 As a woman, and especially as a woman in wine, I know this.\u00a0 This is just the first time someone has been busted in the act.<\/p>\n
I wanted to be a master somm in the court because there were so few women with that title.\u00a0 I didn’t want to be a waitress.\u00a0 I didn’t want to have to use my feminine wiles to get there.\u00a0 I didn’t feel like I needed to feign interest in higher ranking men to get what I wanted.\u00a0 And I didn’t.\u00a0 Today I still want to be a master sommelier, but it won’t be through the court.\u00a0 There are other organizations that focus on wine rather than hospitality, merit rather than cliques, and education over marketing.\u00a0 Recently, I have been struggling with whether or not to stick with the court and push on.\u00a0 I finally have the time again to start looking at pursuing a master somm level.\u00a0 The scripted shock over this scandal has really sealed it for me.\u00a0 It has been exposed for the nonsense it is.\u00a0 And to the court I say good luck.\u00a0 Or is it riddance?\u00a0 Teeheeee!!!<\/p>\n
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