What Sommeliers Get Wrong About Wine

Over the past three decades, we have been working to push sommeliers out of the restaurant and into the broader world of wine. And we have been exceptionally successful! With the National Wine School launch in 2010, the sommelier certificate is now the de facto standard credential for the wine trade. A college degree is no longer essential in getting a wine job!

In the past, sommeliers were stuck in the restaurant, and some still are. This article is intended as a wake-up call for those who still think a sommelier’s place is only in the restaurant.

Restaurants are not the Epicenter of the Wine Trade—the career of a sommelier used to be a limited affair. By the 19th Century, the job grew from being a wine butler for the European aristocracy to working at French restaurants. In those bad old days, everyone in the wine trade was serfs and servants. By the early 20th Century, the wine industry became specialized and professionalized. Incomes for almost everyone, including the migrant workers in the vineyards, went through the roof.

Except for sommeliers, that is. While working in restaurants has some (dwindling) social cache, the jobs outside of a restaurant are the most lucrative. On average, pay for a winemaker is about four times as much as a sommelier. A wine analyst’s starting pay is usually twice that of a veteran sommelier. The only comparable job in terms of pay is working as a migrant worker. Something went terribly wrong for sommeliers in the 21st Century.

Sommelier Certificates are Not Just for Sommeliers—Most people who earn a certification do not work in restaurants. According to internal data from the National Wine School, only 30% of recipients work in hospitality. 17% work at a winery, but most work in the wine supply chain (34%), the sector with the highest-paying wine jobs. A complete 19% of people who earn their wine certification do it for the best reason: love of wine.

In 1969, two of the three major sommelier certification bodies—The Court of Master Sommeliers and the Wine & Spirit Education Trust—were founded in England. This was the beginning of standardized wine education and certification. From the outset, many people taking the courses were not interested in working in restaurants. By 2010, most jobs in the wine industry didn’t require a college degree; instead, they required a sommelier certification.

Being a Servant to High Society is Not a Noble Calling—One of the most disturbing things I have ever read is the Code of Ethics for the Court of Master Sommeliers. While many things in that document are laudable (like not being obnoxiously drunk or racist), some sections require their members to be happy servants to the rich and powerful.

I find it reprehensible that a member of the Court of Master Sommeliers can lose their credenitals if they aren’t subservient to a patron. This codified idea of a sommelier as a servant is one of the main reasons sommeliers are so poorly paid compared to the rest of the wine trade.

Upper Crust Wines are Not Worth The Energy—It only takes a few minutes to google a bottle of wine that costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars. As a servant to the wealthy, a restaurant sommelier will lust after the wines they serve. Sometimes, they will even get a small taste of the dregs. Luxury wine brands are expensive because they are class signifiers, just like Golden Goose sneakers back in 2019.

You can purchase an extraordinary bottle of Napa Cabernet Sauvignon for half the price of Caymus Special Selection (Cade, anyone?), but the point of the high cost is that not everyone gets to drink the wine. The wealthy elites have always sought out ways to identify themselves with each other. Having a certain bottle of wine at dinner is one of those ways.

Sommeliers chasing such luxury brands do nothing but drain their limited resources.

Memorizing Data is Not Knowledge—Wine is a fact-heavy industry. Hundreds of wineries in thousands of wine regions produce tens of thousands of different wines annually. The quality and value of each wine are highly variable, depending on multiple economic and environmental influences.

In the sciences, there is a concept called the half-life of knowledge. It refers to the time it takes for half of the information in a given field to become outdated or disproven. According to Harvard Medical School, the current half-life of medical knowledge is less than two years.

The rate is not nearly that fast in wine, but there are enough changes every year that wine textbooks like the Oxford Guide to Wine must be updated every four to seven years.

The wine world has evolved since the last edition… and this encyclopedic work keeps pace with new information on issues like climate change, biodynamic viticulture and globalization, and emerging wine regions

Eric Asimov, New York Times

Some Sommelier programs (in particular the CMS-A or WSET) are organized around the memorization of wine facts, with a focus primarily on regulations. This old paradigm of wine education is as outdated as it is tedious.

This is why programs like the NWS are the future of wine education. These programs focus on developing life-long skills using projects, demonstrations, and activities rather than rote recitation. Can we all agree that wine education should never include PowerPoints?