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Senior somms are unhappy with how the Court of Master Sommeliers has handled the cheating scandal.

An inside source questions if this might not be the first time names of exam wines were leaked.

It has been more than a month since the incident that caused 23 Master Sommelier (MS) candidates – who had previously been reportedly to have passed the exam – to have their titles taken away.

It has been a period of time in which the Court of Master Sommeliers has remained strangely quiet and has yet to confirm Young's Market Company's Reggie Narito as the Master who shared the list of wines with candidates.

Elaine Beliakoff, a California-based Young's public relations person, highlighted Narito's Linkedin profile, which shows he no long works at the company. She did not make further comment as to whether he quit or was let go because of the information leak. Two other MSs confirmed to me verbally, off-the-record, that Narito was also responsible for the leak.

In a two-hour, exclusive interview with Wine-Searcher, one Master Sommelier praised this publication's recent coverage of the incident and explained his disdain for the close-mouthed way that the Court has handled the issue. He decided to speak up because of his concern over the organization's reputation and frustration that Narito has not been officially named as the person who leaked the information.

Three letters have been sent out by the Court to its members since the news broke on the dates of October 9, 12 and 21. The Court did not respond to requests for comments for this story.

A closer look

The source says that while this might be the one time someone was caught – as Narito sent a text or an email on his phone to at least one student – it may not have been the first time that this has happened. He added that some type of cheating had likely ensued this time because a 50 percent pass rate is highly abnormal for the test given the difficulty of the exam.

He also shared his conviction that some MSs who work for wholesalers may be more likely to leak information to help their protégées pass exams as it will make them indebted to their mentors for the rest of their career. Since wholesalers are basically trying to sell some of their companies' worst wines, he said, (the quality ones tend to sell themselves) they need to accumulate favors that can be "cashed in" with prominent sommeliers.

"The court has been infiltrated by distributors' interest," he said, noting the number of people who worked for importers or distributors who sat the exam this year. He said that he felt compelled to clear the air as "a lot of people on the distributor side know how to misrepresent the facts".

He added that, if the Court had handled the situation correctly, it should have quickly sought out legal and public relations aid. Since the text, or email, was sent by Narito's phone, he added that there must be a record of it on both his phone and those phones of the students who received it.

He went on to note that the delay in responding to and the Court's seeming reluctance to address the scandal added insult to injury.

In the first letter issued by the Court to its members on October 9, the Court's board chair Devon Broglie, who works for Whole Foods, said: "We will be issuing a public statement about this matter soon. In the meantime, this remains a confidential matter with the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas [sic] and idle speculation is best limited as it could needlessly impact the Court's reputation." Broglie and Whole Foods declined to comment for this story.

Justin Timset, who works for Martine's Wines – an importer and distributor – and one of the candidates whose exam was discredited, sent the Court's board and members an October 11 letter in which he stated that Narito broke the Court's code of ethics.

He said he felt that the Board's decision "was done in haste and did not follow appropriate due process ... We understand that there is no precedent for these circumstances, but the absolute nature of the Court's decision, coupled with the public manner in which it was handled, has compromised the integrity of those who sat the exam fairly."

He concluded – agreeing with the source – that, "we feel that the Board owes those impacted by the allegations complete transparency and full disclosure of the incidents that lead [sic] to this decision".

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The tasting exam is meant to test candidates, not trick them.

A few more details

The source added that the Court rarely pours anything unusual on the tasting portion of the exam and hence tends to cover the classic wines such as California Chardonnay, Bordeaux and Burgundy. He added that providing a classic set of wines is intended to test, but not trick candidates on the exam. He questioned if the current set of candidates had the tasting background that would have been sufficient for them to pass these types exams.

He went on to add that, in the old days, students sitting the exam would prepare for it by tasting hundreds of wines a week. He added that sommeliers at restaurants generally make between $80,000 to $160,000 annually – which is the range that he earned annually for a decade on restaurant floors – which does not provide a huge budget for tasting expensive wines.

He also noted that those working for wholesalers, if they know how to move product, might make closer to $150,000-plus annually and also have access to unlimited free wine and extensive expense accounts. He added that through the long process of mentoring a handful of students, wholesalers are also likely to do more than just taste with their hand-picked protégées. The relationship is likely to also have included expensive meals and other treats which can be put on the wholesalers' expense accounts to curry favor with promising sommeliers who are also their customers.

Seeing your favorite handful of wine buyers through the difficult process of studying for the exam, and then having them successfully pass, makes these wholesalers look like superstars in the eyes of their employers. He added that in the first years that the exam was given there were no classes or mentorship relationships. As a result, experienced sommeliers would sit the exam after a number of years on the floor and there was no chance that a relationship of favoritism could have caused an improper sharing of information.

Whereas now the wine industry has fostered a culture of obsession with the MS exam, which drives young people to want to pass the exam before they have any significant experience on a restaurant floor. The recent spate of Somm movies, the third of which is due out shortly, has also certainly helped to drive interest in the program among those who have no wine industry experience.

He added that many MSs on the Court's current board are "in way over their heads in terms of how poorly they are handling the situation". He said the lack of transparency and honesty is drastically harming the reputation of the MS degree.

The bottom line

Wholesalers' employees may not have the finesse and knowledge needed to pass the exam if they haven't done sufficient time on a restaurant floor, he said. That could be another reason that has led some of them, once they passed, to share information – in order for it to be easier for other wholesalers to pass.

While there was no information if the specific wines poured were ever shared in the past – or who might have distributed the list – he doubted Narito passed the information to just one candidate. No one was ever likely to know the truth about what information was shared unless the Court used legal action to access all 24 phones that Narito and the 23 students were using at the time of the exam.

He added, ironically, that the story only came out because one of the 23 students who had previously sat the exam got cold feet and had an attorney contact the Court about the leaked wine information. Sadly that same level of legal finesse and honesty has yet to be shown by the Court or many of its other members.