Double-blind tastings have as much relevance to real, hands- on restaurant work as the Zodiac does to Astronomy.
What you have, rather, is a trade-show paper- chase that's been cooked up by the pretentiously self-qualified to scam money from the slightly less agile.
Suffice it to mention, moreover, that the 'masters' title has absolutely nothing to do with certification from an accredited college or university.
Real masters, from academia, are given by juries of PhD's to acknowledge mastery over a subject of which they, as individuals, have made a contribution to knowledge. Therefore, I challenge any judge of said 'court' to present qualifications that would demonstrate any contribution on their part. to the knowledge of wine.
'Proper' cigar service, perhaps, expressed as their own opinion of propriety? 'Proper' chilling of whites--ostensibly with far greater reference to Oscar Wilde than Van der Walls? Or how about yet another uselessly digressive, non-chemical explanation of 'tannins'?
Lastly, of course, the use of 'Court' speaks volumes about their collective idiocy. How do they support their right to hold court, or to judge, as it were? Where, pray tell, is there a public textbook that's made available for scrutiny much as, say, physics, chemistry, history, or whatever that's taught over at Dustbunny U?
Without reference to said text that's available for all to see, this self-entitled 'court' ranks nothing higher than podunk inquisitional circa AD1200--or rather a Humpty-Dumpty manifesto that states that things mean exactly what I say they mean at the time that I say it".
So much for restaurant 'professionalism': next, perhaps, chiropractics?
Bill Harris
