First off, Somm was excellent and everyone should watch it. There’s suspense, escalating tension, interesting characters, humor. And it de-masks the wine industry and shows that sommeliers and others involved in the world of wine aren’t BS’ing know-it-alls, but engaging, passionate uber nerds who know way more than you.
Here are a few things I learned from them:
– I need to drink more wine
– I need to smell a lot more flowers, including fresh, decaying, and dry flowers
– If you want to get really good at tasting you need a deductive tasting technique and lots and lots of practice
– Wine maps are awesome and pretty and informative and I need to buy and/or print out a lot of them
– I need to bone up on my herbs and spices
– I need to drink more wine
– Studying for the Master Sommelier exam is an intense, crazy experience and you basically have no life outside wine
– Flash cards are helpful studying tools, and you need thousands of them for the MS exam
– Wine can be a door into the culture, food, geography, and history of a country/region
– I should find a forest floor and smell the hell out of it and possibly lick it, if I’m feeling brave
– I need to drink more wine
