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Media professionals were hosted at a dinner where they were afforded the opportunity to interact with internationally renowned sommeliers last month. The evening was an initiative by the co-founder of Kanpai and The Prawnery, Monwabisi Thethe, who has a keen interest in cultivating opportunities for youth development in the hospitality space.
The sommeliers were not just on a social visit to South Africa but were tasked with facilitating exams for students in South Africa who are on their own journey of deepening their understanding and deep knowledge of vineyards, grapes, flavours and other intricacies of the wine industry.
They worked very closely with Monwabisi’s strategic hospitality partner, beverage consultant and Chenin Noir founder, Xolani Mancotywa.
South Africa’s sommelier standards VS global standards
Court of Master Sommeliers CEO Ronan Sayburn described South Africa as a country that matters to the delegation of sommeliers who were with him on this visit, saying there was a shared passion for raising the general standard of sommelier work in the country between themselves and the Thethe/Mancotywa partnership.
In Sayburn’s words, South African wine, frankly, is extraordinary. His belief is that the elevation of the wine business in South Africa can only be achieved if people like Mancotywa are actively engaging local sommeliers on the ground, as this is not something he and his colleagues can manage from London.
“Cultural exchange sits right at the heart of that-between countries, in this case the UK and South Africa, but just as much between sommeliers from different places entirely. It's how the profession builds a community, how it shows people the standard and the integrity it expects of them,” Sayburn explained.
He said there’s not much of a difference between sommelier training models across various countries worldwide. The exact same course runs in every country, as it’s essentially an international course about international wines. Regardless of where the students sit for exams, therefore, their certificate has to carry the same weight across the board.
“We're not going to soften it in South Africa, or anywhere else the wine selection might be thinner on the ground — it's an internationally recognised qualification, so the standard stays identical whether we're running it in Cape Town or in London,” he asserted.
Delving deeper into the exams and Ronan Sayburn’s background
Having studied a catering degree with hotel management in mind, Sayburn shared with TimeOut that he had never set out to become a sommelier.
Only upon discovering how much he loved the front-of-house side of the business — the food and beverage side rather than the kitchen — did the sommelier bug really bite.
“I started out in the north of England, then moved down to London and landed in a two-Michelin-star restaurant. This is where I met Gordon Ramsay, who asked me to come and work for him as his sommelier.”
After eight years of this collaboration with Ramsay, Sayburn travelled around Asia as a scuba diving instructor.
But the love for wine gradually pulled him back, and he has embarked on various ventures, including running the wine aspect of things for hotels in his home country, opening a private members' wine club, and subsequently becoming the full-time CEO of the Court of Master Sommeliers.
These experiences position him perfectly to facilitate the recent South African exams, and he says the same course is also observed in London, Singapore, New York, Melbourne and Athens.
The course is not only costly from a financial point of view but also requires a real investment from the students, as the pass mark is 60 per cent for both theory and practicals respectively.
“A customer will walk in and ask for a French wine that a South African sommelier has never heard of, and the sommelier needs to know what that wine actually tastes like well enough to point them toward something comparable, and just as good, from South Africa,” Sayburn said.
This analogy is precisely why the learning model has been designed such that aspirant sommeliers in this country are given a genuine grounding in international wines as much as anyone anywhere else in the world.
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