Available on Audible
Corked Review
There are many fascinating insights into the world of sommeliers as part of the new Corked podcast on Audible, but the most surprising is this – there are more astronauts in the world than there are master sommeliers.
This fact is shared at an intimate dinner at Letra, an uber cool underground bar tucked away on Kent Street in Sydney’s CBD, the beginning of which required slipping off heels for gumboots, standing in a bucket and crushing grapes.
As you do.
The dinner and blind wine tasting were to promote the six-episode podcast focused on the exclusive world of master sommeliers, of which only 279 people have been given the title since 1969 when the court of master sommeliers was founded. Currently 165 are men, and only 25 women (more on that eye-opening disparity later). In Australia, there are five – all men.
Marc Fennell discusses scandal
Australian journalist and narrator Marc Fennell gave us a quick spiel about the podcast, which took months to make and saw him travel to New Orleans, Tennessee and California to interview key players in a 2018 scandal which rocked the exclusive and mysterious world of master sommeliers.
As Marc pointed out both at the dinner and podcast, to become a master sommelier is not for the faint hearted. In fact, it’s for the downright obsessive. It takes years (and thousands and thousands of dollars) of dedicated practice, training, mentorship, not to mention drinking copious amount of wine, to even begin to be ready for the three-part test comprising an exam, blind tasting and service.
It goes beyond knowing a good drop. Those undertaking the gruelling test need to know the grape, the region, the soil, geology, geography and be able to tell the intricate life story of a vineyard, from its inception to current day. It’s an insurmountable task, which is why the pass rate is merely 10 per cent.
And it’s also why a cheating scandal – and the court’s response – made headlines around the world in 2018 and put this society, with secrecy and misogyny to rival the Freemasons, under a blazing spotlight.
While it is unravelled skilfully in the podcast – which I devoured in one sitting with a similar obsession I had with A Teacher’s Pet by Hedley Thomas – the summary is this; 23 master sommeliers who passed the test in 2018 were unceremoniously stripped of their prestigious title.
Why? Because it was discovered a small number of that class were given an email which had (some) answers to the six-wine blind tasting.
Instead of weeding out those who received it and investigating what they may have done with that knowledge, the court removed all candidates of their master sommelier title.
Blind tasting at Letra
We had our own tilt at blind tasting at Letra, and despite being someone who thought they knew a little about wine, I failed all six with aplomb. Though being able to drink the wines that were chosen by the bar’s female sommelier was a prize in itself.
The Corked podcast blurb proudly states it is a “small door into a big world”, one of obsession, ego and power, and I agree wholeheartedly. It is an intriguing, almost who-done-it thriller that is the morish like an Italian Nebbiolo.
This is due in part to the story but also Fennell’s gift as a storyteller. He is a natural raconteur, with a delightful tone, impressive research and a journo’s unwavering desire to find the truth and expose it. He obviously makes his interviewees feel at ease and is able to extract vulnerability and emotion from those who were unwittingly caught up in the scandal and professionally (and personally) damaged by it.
Elton Nichols, Dan Pilkey and Jane Lopes
Those interviewed include Elton Nichols, one of the candidates who received the cheating email, Dan Pilkey, who is still trying to sue the court to keep his master sommelier title, Jane Lopes, a sommelier who was at the time working in Attica, one of Australia’s most revered restaurants, and its head chef Ben Shewry.
While the narrative focuses on the cheating scandal, in one chapter Fennell quite rightfully delves into is the entrenched misogyny of the master sommelier society and the claims of sexual harassment and even assault. All of which are reminiscent of the Hollywood #metoo era. There have been attempts since to clean up this aspect of the “mentoring” process, but it remains abundantly clear that gender equity in the master sommelier ranks has a long way to go.
The urge to tell the whole sordid tale in this review is strong, but I will refrain because the podcast is so worth listening to. Like Fennell, you may yourself falling headfirst down a rabbit hole that rivals Alice’s. But it is one I wished had a more redemptive ending – which has nothing to do with Fennell’s ability as a master storyteller.
This is not a podcast purely for wine lovers, or even wine wankers. It’s for anyone who likes a rollicking good tale. In my opinion, the only wine wankery appears to be that of the closeted court of master sommeliers.
Corked, six-part series exclusively on Audible.
