SOMM

SOMM

SOMM

Some good wine comment among the testosterone-fuelled wine bravado of sommelier candidates. It seems the only quality these candidates feel they need is to talk fast and with confidence - rule is just name any flavour that comes to your mind. So the aim is to convince the customer in the restaurant that you know exactly what you're talking about. And of course we know that the customer is always satisfied if they have been convinced by a sommelier that the wine they are having is wonderful and well worth the price. Consumer psychology 101.

Greetings again from the darkness. Alexander Payne's 2004 hit Sideways made wine tasting and discussion a fun thing to do with friends, and U.S. wine tours exploded. In the movie, Miles (Paul Giamatti) is quite knowledgeable and opinionated on wine. However, comparing Miles to the real life characters in the Somm documentary is like comparing the boys of The Sandlot to major leaguers ... it's not even close! Filmmaker Jason Wise follows four guys as they prepare for the nearly impossible to pass Master Sommelier exam. The certification has been around for 40 plus years, and less than 200 applicants have actually passed. We get to know the four who are studying so diligently by watching them interact and even talk to the camera. The competitive nature is on full display through the trash-talking and emotions that are evident through each disagreement. Mostly we witness the enormous stress that comes from working so hard for a single shot ... the best comparison I can make is that of an Olympic athlete preparing for their single event. We also meet Fred Dame, the Godfather of U.S. Master Sommelier. He trains through intimidation and seems to carry the burden of exclusivity in every interaction. Yeah, he's kind of jerk. As are the four vying for the certification. It seems one must be self-absorbed and borderline ego-maniacal to build the knowledge and fine tune the palate necessary to have a shot. The exam is broken into 3 parts: Blind wine tasting, Theory, and Service. The wine tasting segments are most fun to watch as we quickly learn there is a skill, a science and some luck involved. Through a sniff and a sip, they must be able to identify the type of wine, the subtle flavors, the age of the wine, the country of origin, the specific region, and even the level of winery. The theory section involves knowing wine history from all over the globe. This is accomplished through endless hours of reading and flash card drills. The Service portion gets the short straw here, but we do get a taste of the outlandish nature of a game whose point seems to be humiliating the participant. To add another touch of legend, we do get some insight from Bo Barrett, the legendary California wine maker profiled in the movie Bottle Shock. Mostly though, we learn that this most prestigious designation can only be obtained through an elitist Obsessive-Compulsive approach that kills all sense of acceptable societal manner. For most of us, enjoying a glass of wine with friends is reward enough ... for you others, best of luck learning the 3000 grape varietals in Italy alone.

I was fortunate to see this movie at the Napa Valley Film Festival Premiere this past spring. It is a story of four wine professionals working to gain the title of Master Sommelier through a process of practical tasting regimes and intense study. Often times at the lose of much in their own personal lives and relationships.Very well done in extracting the dedication,frustration and sheer work that these fellows put in to achieve their goal. One does not have to be a wine lover to feel the 'pain' and revel at the success that each of them experience at some point throughout the process. I cannot wait for it to come into general release to see it again. Kudos to all involved.

I often find (being a Sommelier myself) that very little is known about the world in which we live. Our lives are dictated by wine and everything that we do revolves around wine. It really is bordering on a slight hint of a mad obsession.... but its what we do. This film for me shows Sommeliers in their true colours and is slowly starting to break down the barrier within a restaurant environment to show that we are actually really knowledgeable people and we do know what we are doing and that people need to start listening to us and trusting us. Going through the Court of Master Sommeliers is no easy feet and requires years and years of intense studying, training and perseverance. Anybody with an experience of university of something similar could have tiny fraction of an idea of what commitment is actually involved in this. Overall, I reckon its amazing and I hope that more and more people will come to see and enjoy it as much as I did.

This movie, without a whiff of irony, lets you in to see the world of the incredibly privileged 'master sommelier' - focusing mostly on three dudes with no jobs, lots of familial financial support, and perversely, no apparent love of wine, as they navigate the stunningly complex, utterly gated certification course that will ensure they are rich to the end of their days...as it was that they started. This is useful to see, I think, because it should let you dismiss, in your own life, some of the anxiety we all have about buying wine, drinking wine, and what we all feel we are expected to know about wine. The documentary has no soul, no joy, nothing that wine is or provides - it is deeply infatuated with itself, in much the same way its subjects are, and I think you should avoid it. I gave it one star for the awful perspective, and one star for finding so many garish ways to break wine glasses in slow motion - which is a nonsensical and constantly recurring motif.

Wine is one of the most beautiful things in the world, combining history, culture,art, nature and tradition. It is made in order for people to have more joy in their lives. At least thats the attitude most wine drinkers in the old world countries have towards wine. Unfortunately, since countries like Great Britain and the United States never had such an old wine tradition like for instance counties like Italy or France, some people over there got everything wrong and because of their incapacity of feeling and respecting wine like they should do, they started to build an "elite" community, called master sommeliers. The only purpose of this "elite" community is to use wine as a subject of some kind of completely soulless competition. The result is shown in its full cruelty in this film. Teachers (Master Sommeliers) as well as students (Master Sommelier candidates) are doing their best to let wine seem like a cardio machine in a fitness studio. Culture is something these people have never understood and will never understand. For real wine lovers who know what wine is made for, with at least little glimpse of cultural background, education and, above all, heart, this film is hardly bearable.

I didn't really expect to like a movie about wine geeks, but this movie really pulled me into the process that the four lead characters were going through to become members of the very elite master sommelier group. Less than 200 people worldwide have this certification. Jason, Dustin, Brian and Dlynn all had very different approaches to exam, with different strengths and weaknesses. I found all the lead characters extremely likable and you could not help but root for all of them to pass the exam. I thought the cinematography was good. I particularly liked the use of the wine glass as a segue between scenes. The movie did drag a little in some of the exam preparation scenes.