Australia’s first female Master Sommelier devastated after losing global title amid cheat scandal

JANE Lopes, the wine guru at Melbourne’s finest restaurant, Attica, has been left devastated after she was among 23 Master Sommeliers who had their titles revoked when one of the judges slipped the tasting test answers to a favoured candidate.

JANE Lopes, the wine guru at Melbourne’s finest restaurant, Attica, was popping the cork earlier this month on becoming Australia’s first female Master Sommelier.

But she was stripped of the prestigious title this week, because it turned out one of the judges at the Court of Master Sommeliers in the US had slipped the tasting test answers to a favoured candidate.

It’s left everyone involved with a particularly nasty hangover.

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Our Jane is one of 23 Master Sommeliers whose titles were revoked. She is more than disappointed — try devastated — and hopes an investigation will clear the names of the innocent.

The title of Master Sommelier is as rare as some of the wines these masters of their craft might present to discerning diners at the world’s finest restaurants.

Wine stewards can spend decades educating their palates, and helping you to improve yours, without ever achieving such an accolade. Applicants submit to what is regarded as winedom’s toughest tests, based on complex theory, service to the well-heeled few, and — horror — the blind tasting.

Jane Lopes is the wine guru at Melbourne’s finest restaurant, Attica. Picture: Josh Robenstone

Candidates must be familiar with every grape variety: think about 10,000. Study time is akin to that taken to get a medical degree.

The successful but now furious candidates want the cheaters caught and punished.

“We are all hoping a proper investigation will clear the innocent and protect those who rightfully earned the title,” said Lopes, who was choosing her words as carefully as she might a bordeaux, perhaps a Margaux or a Chateau Lafite.

It has been “a brutal” couple of weeks since learning the news, Lopes lamented.

Nineteen of the candidates have written to the Court of Master Sommeliers over the scandal.

In America, where this little corker started, there have been protests that the decision had been made “in haste.”

Retesting the candidates “effectively exonerates the guilty parties and at the very least rewards their lack of moral courage,” has been the polite reaction.

“The onus lies with the board to conduct a full investigation into the scope of the cheating and to issue an apology clearing those not involved in the allegations, fully reinstating their status as Master Sommeliers.”

More to the point, studying for the tests “took a tonne of work”, said Attica’s Lopes.

“I studied 20 to 30 hours a week. Days off were study days and I even studied before work.”

Australia’s ranting politicians could take a lesson in language from the Master Sommeliers.

Chair Devon Broglie said of the unseemly scandal: “They come with consequences that are difficult to swallow, but ultimately these decisions are in the best interest of the Court, its members and our industry …

“Maintaining the integrity of the examination process must be our highest priority, lest we risk diminishing the value of, and the respect earned from, becoming a Master Sommelier.”

Such niceties aside, Page 13 thinks there are likely to be the usual human frailties at work here. Try sex and money.