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Sommelier / Wine Expert
Evaluates, selects, and recommends wines — an expert in vineyards, grapes, and flavor pairing.
Did you know?
Only about 280 people had earned the Master Sommelier title by 2018; exam pass rates are around 3 to 8%, and candidates name six wines by taste.
How subjects help
- Chemistry: Taste how the acid, sugar and tannin in a wine change the flavour of the food beside it.
- Geography: Explain how a region's sunshine, rain and soil shape the flavour of its grapes.
- Biology: Understand how yeast turns grape sugar into alcohol and how grape varieties differ.
- Business Studies: Choose and price wines for a restaurant cellar so they sell well and suit the menu.
A famous name
Robert Parker: Wine critic whose 100-point scores in The Wine Advocate (from 1978) shaped world wine buying.
Try it yourself: Sort kitchen smells into families
- Smell each one gently by wafting the air towards your nose. Never sniff cleaning products or unknown bottles.
- Describe each smell in three words.
- Sort them into families: fresh (citrus), green (herbs), warm (spices), sweet.
- Which two would smell nice together, and which would clash?
Perfumers learn to recognise and describe hundreds of scents, then combine them like notes in music.
Also try: Run a fair test with sugar.
Known for it in
France, Italy, USA, Australia, Spain