Professional Wine Consultants - Milwaukee Wine - Sommeliers

In 2007 I passed the advanced level with the Court of Master Sommeliers. This is an organization that now has only 105 members in the United States and just 17 of those are women. Passing the advanced level makes me eligible to sit THAT exam and I will be doing just that in February of 2011.

I started this journey in 2004. I knew of only one person that had taken the first test here and I was the second.  Since then many of my friends here have taken that test successfully and then moved on to take the certified level. Here in Milwaukee there are a good dozen wine professionals that are certified sommeliers. Although I am the only person here to have passed the advanced sommelier exam, I know there are many to come.

Milwaukee has a very sophisticated wine community but the rest of the country hasn’t connected the dots in their (wine culture) view of us. With my passing the Master Sommelier and with each passing first level, certified sommelier and advanced sommelier, the dots will be connected.

A group of wine professionals, and I am proud to say my friends, get together every Monday to taste. Right now we are tasting by varietal and in the mix there will be blind tasting. There are so many possible combinations in regards to tasting that it is almost hard to fathom.

But we continue to taste and sometimes we study. We are taking a test that is coming up so eventually we will hit the books to get that one checked off.

So this is is the beginning of the last leg of my testing journey. I have three years to pass all three parts.

Blind tasting six difficult wines - the advanced level was easy compared to this. There we had Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and possibly Malbec. Compared to what I will be up against those really are easy.

Theory….you can”t even imagine, right now I am committing to memory all of the sub regions of Greece and the grapes soils and producers of each of those then off to Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia. Yipee!!!

And then service which is 45 minutes under a microscope being judged by the clique you want to join!

This is the most ambitious challenge I have ever undertaken and I am determined to succeed!

Napa here I come, in February that is!