The Court of Master Sommeliers Wine Exam

The Whiskey Library decided to check out the wine world’s prestigious guild, The Court of Master Sommeliers. The exam was expensive and hard, but we wanted to go to learn more about wine (a close second to whiskey) and to see how much was covered about whiskey.  After all, the two worlds are not that dissimilar.  Many of you are likely familiar with the grueling curriculum from the recent movies that have come out focusing on the master level test.  While that master exam would have made for a more traumatic story, we sat for the level one exam.

Going in, we had no idea what to expect.  We had heard it was an easy test by some in industry and an incredibly hard test by others.  The only actionable piece of advice we got was to spit all of the wine tastings.  While this initially seemed appalling, I quickly heeded the advice when we began drinking at 10 Saturday morning. The two day class aims to cover the entire world of wine, deductive tasting and a small portion on spirits.  At the end of almost 20 hours of classes, you’re given an exam to determine if you have passed level one.

The first day began at 9 am in an old hotel in the tenderloin district of San Francisco. Around a hundred students were sitting on long white tables gleaming at our instructors, four master sommeliers.  Like any class, we started with an overview and setting of expectations for the weekend. Very quickly we jumped into tasting, food pairing and European wine law.  The class then began taking everyone through the regions of European wine, from Burgundy to Greece.  By the end of day one, we had tasted eight wines, learned half of Europe’s wine, and completely worn ourselves out. Unfortunately Saturday night is the only night you get to study, so we took it easy, got a good dinner and went home to review.

Day two kicked off right away with a wine tasting, it turns out your palate is most awake in the morning! After tasting, we finished off the old world regions (just think back to history class, the countries that were around a long time ago are old world) and began exploring the new world wines. The tasting and lectures really start to come together here, because you begin understanding why certain wines taste different than others. After lunch the group is led through the certified sommelier (level 2) tasting guide.  What once seemed impossible, deducing which wine you’re tasting without the bottle to tell you, is now being accomplished by almost everyone in the room!

The last section of the day is Beer/sake/spirits, after all this is a wine course. Thankfully, the bulk of this section was actually about whiskey!  Most of the basics were covered, the types of whiskey, the varying methods of production and the differentiating factors between regions. We then had 30 minutes to review and it was exam time. The 70 question exam focused a lot on grape varieties and regions, something I knew nothing about coming in.

Being one of the few people in the class that wasn’t in the wine industry, the class and exam were very difficult.  However, I walked out of the hotel on Sunday evening with a level one sommelier pin and a lot more wine knowledge than I had going in.  I would highly recommend the class to any whiskey drinker who has a few glasses of wine at dinner before pulling out the single malts. You gain a basic understanding and an appreciation of wine nuances and the history of making it.