International sommelier scandal claims Aussie victim

Jane Lopes, the wine director of Melbourne's Attica, is among 23 candidates who have lost their Master Sommelier status following a cheating scandal in the United States.

The Court of Master Sommeliers revealed last week that a board member (who has since been removed) had slipped details of the examination wines to an unknown number of candidates. As a result, it has stripped all but one of the candidates of their Master Sommelier status.

A letter signed by 19 of the 23 MS candidates has been sent to the Board of Directors of the Court of Master Sommeliers asking them to review the decision.

It says: "As your colleagues and as members of the Court of Master Sommeliers, we feel the decision reached by the board ... was done in haste and did not follow appropriate due process in redacting the status of the Class of 2018, as outlined by the Bylaws of the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas."

It goes on to request a full investigation to punish the guilty rather than fail the entire class of 2018.

The Master Sommelier exam is widely regarded as the wine world's most challenging qualification to achieve but, as a result of the board member's actions, all 2018 candidates will now have to resist it. 

Master Sommelier entrants must pass a three-part exam: theory, hospitality and the most difficult final round, which requires sommeliers to blind taste and pinpoint the exact varietal, vintage and origin of six wines.

The exam is difficult that roughly only 5% of entrants pass.

Only one sommelier, Morgan Harris, now appears on the Court of Master Sommeliers, Americas, site for 2018, as he completed the tasting portion of his exam earlier in the year.

It's a heartbreaking development for Lopes, who was the first Australian woman to achieve the title.

The scandal also comes at a high cost for Lopes, who had already travelled twice to the US for the exams, sitting them for the first time in 2015. She says candidates pay thousands of dollars "for all the wines you need to taste".

Fellow sommelier Carlos Santos from Vue de Monde, who passed his tasting exam in Austria earlier this year and will sit his Master Sommelier theory exam next year, agrees. 

He's been doing tastings with Lopes for a year and noted to the Australian Financial Review: "I've spent over $9000 this past year just on bottles. That's not including any trips."

Lopes said it has been an awful time and she was unable to comment until "internal happenings have been resolved".