People
I Can Wax Poetic, but I Tend to Speak Plainly About Wine
Meet Master Sommelier, Michael Meagher
April 6, 2022
Michael Meagher wrote his master's thesis on screw-capped wines in the United States. In 2010, he swept the title of Best Young Sommelier in America after winning the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs annual national sommelier competition. His résumé boasts such prestigious names as Jackson Family Wines and the late, great L'Espalier restaurant in Boston.
He is also one of only 273 Master Sommeliers in the world. So, when Meagher says "everyone follows their own journey in wine," it's easy to assume that his own journey has been relatively unhindered by uncertainty or doubt, more linear than circuitous.
The reality is more complicated. Meagher has built his career on leaps of faith coupled with an intense work ethic. He chose the Culinary Institute of America over law school after graduating from Harvard and went on to cook in restaurants for a few years before leaving to pursue a master's degree in gastronomy at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.
"I went there realizing my future didn't lie in a kitchen," Meagher says. "I packed up and moved to Australia. The move still didn't give me a good idea of what I was going to do with my life in terms of a career but studying food and the culture surrounding it kind of put everything together."
The idea of earning a living in the wine industry was more of a slow dawning than a lightning bolt. After a job in gastro-tourism in Australia fell through due to a lack of funding, he returned to the U.S. and resumed working in restaurants, only in the front of the house this time.
He already knew he was interested in wine. He'd taken and passed an introductory course for the Court of Master Sommeliers. "I thought, ‘I'll just go take it and see what happens,'" he says. He passed but was wary. He recalls. "I worried that getting into wine professionally would lead me down the same path that cooking professionally did but it compelled me."
Meagher threw himself into learning all aspects of the wine industry, from pulling corks, decanting tableside, working wine dinners and beverage departments, buying and selling wine, and working as a corporate wine educator. He spent nine years preparing for the Court of Master Sommeliers' notoriously punishing Master Sommelier Diploma Exam. He passed in 2015, on his sixth try.
"For sure, it's a benefit," he says of the Master Sommelier title. "But I don't think it defines me." So what does define Meagher? "Mentorship," he says. "I want the industry to be better when I leave it than when I entered it. It's a hard industry. I want the people who are coming in behind me to be set up for success."
Meagher is one of 16 independent sommeliers who leads virtual wine tastings for Sommsation. "I can wax poetic," he says. "But I tend to speak pretty plainly about wine!" He lives in Groton, Massachusetts with his wife, Carolyn, and their sons Liam, 8, and Trent, 6.
Get to know Michael Meagher in the Q&A below.
You lead virtual wine tastings for Sommsation. Wine is so sensory. How do you discuss flavors and aromas virtually in a way that still connects with people?
Being a sommelier is about being a communicator. Talking about flavors and aromas that people are not familiar with doesn't do them any good. Like talking about my grandmother's perfume or a potpourri that she had in her bathroom doesn't mean anything to anyone except me, so if I were to describe wine in those terms, I'd lose everybody!
I try to guide groups and allow them to visualize a bit better what I'm talking about, like how ripeness affects flavors, and then encourage them to come to their own conclusions. Unless you're taking an exam there's no right answer and no wrong conclusion in wine. It's a very personal, subjective thing.
You went from deciding to pursue a career in the wine industry in 2006 to winning a Best Young Sommelier in America competition in 2010. You accrued a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience relatively quickly. How?
I came back to the U.S., finished my thesis and went back to work at restaurants but in the front of the house. I worked with a restaurant group that had multiple locations. They had one of the top fine-dining restaurants in Boston, L'Espalier, but there were also a bunch of other more casual restaurants so I got to pick around all these different wine lists and experiences.
On Saturday night I would be on the floor doing French formal service and decanting tableside and then on Wednesday night, I'd be doing a wine dinner, pulling corks, and all of that. Very different experiences. It gave me a lot of education and a lot of experience in a short amount of time. It cut the learning curve down just by the sheer volume of work I was doing.
How many hours a week were you working in restaurants at that point?
I don't know, maybe north of 70? But then, adding in classes and study and things like that, it was totally a sleep-deprived, socially-deprived part of my life. I just wanted to absorb as much information and work as much as I could. I was in my twenties and told myself, "This is totally fine. Just go hustle and make it work."
The Master Sommelier diploma exam is notoriously grueling. The current pass rate hovers around 10 percent. You spent nine years preparing for the exam before passing it on your sixth try, in 2015. Is it true that, at one point, you studied laminated maps of wine-growing regions in the shower?!
Yes! In my shower! I try to absorb information however my body, and my mind, can and I found that one way for me to learn about countries [wine-growing regions] that I was just not that familiar with was to stare at them in the shower. I could bring that visual up, "Oh, I see this map…" So, South Africa was right there in the shower with me! Greece? Right there in the shower! You just look at them long enough and pay a little bit closer attention and focus on the details. It's amazing how sticky something becomes with five to 10 minutes a day of every day over a span of a month or two.
Does having a Master Sommelier certification open doors for you professionally?
Yes and no. For sure, having the Master Sommelier title has allowed some doors to open for me. That being said, the title doesn't keep them open. It's the individual that keeps them open.
Again, it's a benefit but I don't think it defines me. There are some people who see it as a definition of who they are and that's why they want to achieve the title. They think it's going to do all the work for them. But the work has been done over the years. Now you have to use it effectively.
So, yeah, it's good for me to know all this stuff but, to be honest, most of my work is not on the floor at a restaurant. It's actually training, it's developing training modules. It's coming up with things that are compelling because my knowledgeable, if not well-applied, profits no one.
You mentor sommeliers who are preparing for the Master Sommelier diploma exam. How do you approach mentorship?
The world of wine is so vast and so complicated, sometimes necessarily so, sometimes not, that it is helpful to have someone with a flashlight to point you in the right direction.
I enjoy helping people, seeing their strengths, giving frank guidance and insight into things…so they get a sense of the landscape and feel more confident as they move forward. Answering the questions, “What worked for you?" or "Have you seen anybody or taught anybody who had this kind of issue?" To give support and guidance, that's powerful. It wasn't always that way.
What were some other study methods that helped you learn and retain information?
Good old-fashioned index cards. I also had digital flashcards. I had maps all over the walls. I would trace maps. I would try to create little one-pagers on the Loire Valley let’s say. I would draw the map and then put notes above it thinking, "If I'm teaching this for a class, what are the key things I would need to convey?" That became a reference sheet for me. If I had 15 minutes, I would stick to a single page, get that information in my brain and try to avoid going down the rabbit hole and getting totally lost.
Have you ever felt limited by the Master Sommelier title?
It opened up some doors but it also closed others. Some people may think, "You're probably a little too fancy for this event. "But, the world of wine is big enough for everyone to exist happily, and peacefully. It's been a net positive.
Was there a "pay your dues" culture in place back in the day?
It used to be very much an apprentice-driven industry, very European, where you would spend your time in the salt mines before you can get to touch a bottle of wine. You go and do all the grunt work and all the stuff nobody else wants to do. It shouldn't always have to be that way. Nobody wants to work like that.
Mentorship is so important. At some point, I'll retire – not anytime soon! – but I want the industry to be better when I leave it than when I entered it and I want the people who are coming in behind me…to be set up for success.
You've probably been asked this a million times but what do you drink if and when you're not drinking wine?
I am an equal opportunity imbiber: cheap light beer, bourbon, anything in between! If I go to a great cocktail bar, I will try anything! Yeah. I'll drink pretty much anything that suits the moment.
