“Wine online is a great sadness.”
Does accessibility the Internet gives us actually ruin everything?
In the last edition of the influential Italian magazine about wine “Bibenda,” the President of Fondazione Italiana Sommelier Franco M. Ricci shared his concerns about what the culture of wine is becoming.
“Except for the fact that a student is wearing sleepers, I think there is nothing worse than the absence of the wine teacher. Wine is a serious thing. Tasting it from home with a guide in front of a laptop is a NO… Thanks to the conscious tasting in spacious classrooms, elegant and bright, with teachers “actors” who tells fascinating stories, the wine had had enormous success in the past 20 years.”
What to do when you can’t go outside?
When the pandemic hit, we all remain closed at home.
But humans are not stones, we can’t just sit without doing nothing. Many people started to share more about their interests online, and bam! — you have a million courses, posts, online tastings, etc. You can learn how to appreciate wine like a pro, how to sew a suit like an Italian tailor, how to make real samurai katana, and many other things.
In the beginning, I thought about the wine courses online as a fun game, but not even close to the REAL education. Because when you have an experience with a sommelier school, you’d have something to compare to.
Once I came across an account of the chef who worked in a 3 stars Michelin restaurant. She shared her tips and tricks. I don’t have experience with the real cooking school or working in a Michelin restaurant, I have nothing to compare with. Her tips were interesting and the images invoke appetite. It was enough to ignite curiosity in me to try some recipes at home.
Was I good at repeating after the professional? I guess if she would saw what I prepared, she would give me barely C -. Who cut carrot like this? Or add soy sauce instead of salt? Everything is important, every detail!
But, since nobody was judging me, cooking at home was fine for me. My family members called me “chef”, which made me feel great about myself.
From reading to executing
When that chef started her course on how to cook at home like in a Michelin restaurant, I bought it. I was curious to learn more. Probably a real chef, who spent years and thousands of dollars on education, would slap their forehead and sight, “this is not how you should learn this. What you are doing is a joke!”
Same with online wine courses. You are experiencing what is convenient right here right now. You don’t need somebody to help and fix little details because you DON’T KNOW that you NEED something to be fixed. The rest you’ll learn by yourself If you’ll need it.
For me, an online wine course and study in the sommelier school are the same as comparing a strange liquid called wine in a can for 2.99 and a bottle of fine Burgundy, Petrus, for example.
But suddenly an online cooking course is good enough. Is it weird? I don’t think so. It’s merely the presence or absence of the previous experience. With the Internet, we can have easier access to things and knowledge we couldn’t have before. Every aspect of our life is already transferred online — even wine, food, and a visit to a doctor.
What I love the most about American culture (and what we are missing in some European cultures) is when people encounter something they are uncomfortable with, instead of whining and remembering good old days, they are thinking, “HOW can I fix it?”
I hope big wine schools, for whom I have enormous love and respect, will stop raving about the ridiculousness of the wine courses online and will think about how they can adjust to changes and continue to help people have access to a superb education. The most adaptable will survive. Adaptable, not strongest, or smartest. Dinosaurs are the perfect example.
As general Suvorov said, “If the process can’t be stopped, it should be organized and led.”
