Benu is a three-Michelin star New American restaurant located in the SoMa district of downtown San Francisco opened in 2010 by chef Corey Lee, the former Chef de cuisine at the French Laundry. Benu made the list of The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2019.
Oenology is the science and study of wine and winemaking. Oenology is distinct from viticulture, which is the science of the growing, cultivation, and harvesting of grapes. The English word oenology derives from the Greek word oinos "wine" and the suffix –logia the "study of". An oenologist is an expert in the science of wine and of the arts and techniques for making wine.
A sommelier, or wine steward, is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional, normally working in fine restaurants, who specializes in all aspects of wine service as well as wine and food pairing. The role of the sommelier in fine dining today is much more specialized and informed than that of a wine waiter. Sommeliers Australia states that the role is strategically on par with that of the chef de cuisine.
Wine and food matching is the process of pairing food dishes with wine to enhance the dining experience. In many cultures, wine has had a long history of being a staple at the dinner table and in some ways both the winemaking and culinary traditions of a region will have evolved together over the years. Rather than following a set of rules, local cuisines were paired simply with local wines. The modern "art" of food pairings is a relatively recent phenomenon, fostering an industry of books and media with guidelines for pairings of particular foods and wine. In the restaurant industry, sommeliers are often present to make food pairing recommendations for the guest. The main concept behind pairings is that certain elements in both food and wine interact with each other, and thus finding the right combination of these elements will make the entire dining experience more enjoyable. However, taste and enjoyment are very subjective and what may be a "textbook perfect" pairing for one taster could be less enjoyable to another.
Master of Wine (MW) is a qualification issued by The Institute of Masters of Wine in the United Kingdom. The MW qualification is generally regarded in the wine industry as one of the highest standards of professional knowledge.
Vana Tallinn is an Estonian brand of liqueur manufactured continuously by Liviko since 1960. The recipe contains Jamaican rum and a variety of herbs and spices.
Blinded wine tasting is wine tasting undertaken in circumstances in which the tasters are kept unaware of the wines' identities. The blind approach is routine for wine professionals who wish to ensure impartiality in the judgment of the quality of wine during wine competitions or in the evaluation of a sommelier for professional certification. More recently wine scientists have used blinded tastings to explore the objective parameters of the human olfactory system as they apply to the ability of wine drinkers to identify and characterize the extraordinary variety of compounds that contribute to a wine’s aroma. Similarly, economists testing hypotheses relating to the wine market have used the technique in their research. Some blinded trials among wine consumers have indicated that people can find nothing in a wine's aroma or taste to distinguish between ordinary and pricey brands. Academic research on blinded wine tastings have also cast doubt on the ability of professional tasters to judge wines consistently.
A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages, categories, and/or brands of wine. Wine competitions generally use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges.
Andrea Robinson is an American sommelier, chef, television personality, and author. She is one of thirty-two women Master Sommeliers in the world and was the first woman to be named by the Sommelier Society of America as the best sommelier in the United States, which occurred in 1997. She has been the recipient of three James Beard Awards.
The Beverage Testing Institute (BTI) is a marketing service company that provides reviews for spirits, wines, and beers. It uses numerical scores and publishes books of its test results.
The Wine & Spirit Education Trust, often referred to as WSET, is a global organisation which arranges courses and exams in the field of wine, spirits and sake. WSET was founded in 1969, is headquartered in London and is generally regarded as one of the world's leading providers of wine education. In 2016, it opened its first international office, WSET Asia Pacific, in Hong Kong in response to high demand for wine and spirit education across Greater China.
Jeannie Cho Lee is a Hong Kong-based, Korean-American wine critic, author, journalist, consultant, wine educator and Master of Wine, the first ethnic Asian to achieve this accreditation. She was 25th on Decanter's Power List 2013.
A beer sommelier, also known as a cicerone in the United States, is a trained professional, working in the hospitality and alcoholic beverage industry, who specializes in the service and knowledge of beer, similar to a traditional wine sommelier. The knowledge required for certification includes an understanding of styles, brewing, ingredients, history of beer and brewing, glassware, beer service, draught systems, beer tasting, and food pairings. The profession is relatively new but growing.
The Court of Master Sommeliers (CMS) is an educational organisation established in 1977 to encourage improved standards of beverage service by sommeliers, particularly in wine and food pairing. From the court's inception through 2018, a worldwide total of 274 people have earned its Master Sommelier diploma, the highest level.
Mutfak Sanatları Akademisi or shortly MSA is an international culinary school Founded 2004 in Istanbul, Turkey. It is accredited by City&Guilds and awarded by World Association of Chefs Societies for its superior quality of professional education. MSA's campus in Istanbul Maslak features professional kitchens, an amateur workshop kitchen, a bar and mixology classroom, a sommelier training facility, seminar rooms, Turkey's one and only kitchen auditorium, R&D lab and a restaurant called Okulun Mutfagi where MSA students complete their internships.
Giuseppe Vaccarini , is an Italian sommelier, winner of the Best Sommelier of the World A.S.I. 1978 competition and President for two mandates, from 1996 to 2004, of the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale.
Somm is a 2012 American documentary following the attempts of four candidates to pass the extremely difficult Master Sommelier examination, a test with one of the lowest pass rates in the world. Directed by Jason Wise, a sequel, Somm: Into the Bottle, was released in 2015 and a third film, Somm 3, came out in October 2018. A TV series based on the movie launched on the Esquire Network in November 2015. In 2019, SOMM TV was launched by creator Jason Wise with original shows.
Peter Neptune is an American wine expert and educator as well as a former television and NY stage actor. He is one of only 147 Master Sommeliers in North America, as of June 2015, and is the founder of the Orange County, CA-based Neptune School of Wine. He appeared on and off Broadway in 1984 and 1985, appeared in numerous television movies and series from 1988 through 1990, and appeared as himself in the 2013 wine documentary SOMM.
The 2018 Master Sommelier exam cheating scandal was disclosed in early October when the board of the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas (CMSA) voted unanimously to suspend indefinitely the Master Sommelier credential awarded to all but one of an unprecedented 24 candidates who had passed its stringent annual membership exam a month previously at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. The decision was taken after the CMSA's board learned that one of its own members, Reggie Narito, had passed advance information about two of the six wines candidates had to identify during the blind tasting section, considered the most challenging of the three portions of the exam. Two of the successful candidates, to whom the information was known to have been passed, unsolicited, were barred from retaking the exam for five years. All the others were allowed to make up the exam in December at no charge; six passed. Narito was expelled from the organization and lost his Master Sommelier title.
