What are the facts you need to know if you want to become a sommelier? First of all, it isn’t enough just to love wine and know the difference between the white wine and that it goes with fish and the red wine which is best with the meat. If it was that easy, there wouldn’t be only 147 Master Sommeliers.
The journey of becoming Master Sommelier is long and hard and not that cheap at all. For becoming Master Sommelier, you need to pass four tests which include few years of preparing and cost from $525 for the first to $1500 for the last one. Each new one can’t be taken without passing the previous one and is more difficult. Due to that, the percentage of the candidates who pass it is lower at every new level.
The first one is the Introductory part. This is the easiest part with the highest range of passes and includes the basics such as wine-making procedures, varieties of grape and matching wine with food. For the second part and you should prepare yourself for the Certified Sommelier Examination. It is a bit harder, but it still can be passed by more than 50% of candidates and it is focused on In-depth knowledge of the world of wine.
The third part is the 3-days long Advanced Sommelier Course where you will be thought by master sommeliers all the lectures and have the tasting sessions for preparing yourself for the Advanced Sommelier Exam. This exam needs to be prepared for minimum 1-2 years. This part is related to wine-producing regions and the producers. Besides the theoretical questions which require short and precise answers, there is also the blind wine-tasting part with 6 different kinds of wine.
Assuming that you passed all the previous parts, now it’s your turn to pass the 3-part Master Sommelier Diploma Exam and you are given 3 years to finish it. You are expected that, by now, you already have the 10-years-experience in this area and it is time for you to prove your level of expertise. This one is the harder version of the previous one and it is expected from you to know everything, from wine-making procedures, producers, matching the wines with food and everything else related to this area. You will need to prepare yourself great since there is only 1% of the candidates who manage to pass and we are sure that you want to waste $1500 for nothing.
For more interesting facts about the Master Sommelier exams, salary, cost, jobs and more, try out Insider Monkey’s list and see if this tastes you good enough to try.
