Court of Master Sommeliers
The Court of Master Sommeliers certifies wine professionals through one of the most grueling exam programs in the world. It also spent years covering up cheating and shielding sexual predators. Prospective candidates deserve the full picture.
A Reckoning Long Overdue
In October 2020, The New York Times published a report in which 22 women accused prominent Master Sommeliers of sexual harassment, assault, and rape. The named individuals included Geoff Kruth — a star of the documentary film Somm — along with Robert Bath, Fred Dame, Drew Hendricks, and Matt Stamp, among others. Within weeks, the Court suspended 11 members and the entire board resigned under pressure.
That might have been the beginning of the story. In many ways it was the end of one that had been building for years. A 2020 Change.org petition, signed by nearly 1,100 people at various stages of training and certification — including at least 18 Master Sommeliers — called for a full board replacement and cited not only the sexual misconduct but the Court’s “failure to express unequivocal support” for the BIPOC community and its mishandling of a cheating scandal two years earlier.
After a third-party investigation, six Master Sommeliers were stripped of their titles and removed from the organization in November 2021, including Fred Dame, widely credited with founding the Americas chapter in 1987. The scandal, by then, had gutted enrollment. In 2019, the Americas chapter had 8,081 students enrolled in its courses. In 2020, that number fell to 1,325.
The 2018 Cheating Scandal
Before the sexual misconduct story broke, there was the matter of the exam itself. In October 2018, the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas voted to suspend the diplomas of 23 of the 24 candidates who had passed that year’s exam at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. The reason: board member Reggie Narito had leaked advance information about two of the six wines in the blind tasting section.
The board’s internal investigation drew immediate criticism as cursory and potentially conflicted. More damaging, a 2021 investigation by Vice reported that the board had been aware of cheating on the exam nearly a decade earlier and had taken no action beyond tightening procedures for the following year. The suspicion that the mass invalidation of the 2018 class was partly motivated by a desire to bury older, more embarrassing incidents has never been fully dispelled. The Court declined interview requests on the matter.
What the CMS Actually Is
The Court of Master Sommeliers was formally established in April 1977 in England, though the credential it awards — the Master Sommelier Diploma — dates to 1969, when the first exam was held at Vintner’s Hall in London. The organizing bodies included the Vintners Company, the Institute of Masters of Wine, the British Hotels & Restaurants Association, the Wine & Spirit Association of Great Britain, and the Wholesale Tobacco Trade Association. The idea was straightforward: the British wine industry needed a credentialed service class to sell high-end wine in restaurants, and the diploma would provide it. Cyril Ware, Danny Lydon, and George Clarke were the first to pass.
A 1969 issue of the Brewing Trade Review quoted a guild official who predicted that “Britain’s wine butlers will be able to gain a Master Sommelier’s Diploma, showing that they are masters of their craft” — a credential available to practicing wine butlers with at least five years’ experience. The language was of its era; the ambition was not.
The Americas chapter was established in 1987 and held its first exam in Monterey, Calif. Today it operates out of Santa Barbara and serves North America, South America, and Canada. Globally, the Court now operates in 18 countries across 26 cities, with approximately 293 people worldwide holding the Master Sommelier Diploma.
The Court of Master Sommeliers Americas holds a federally registered trademark on the title “Master Sommelier” in the United States, which it has used to prevent other organizations from using the designation. In 2021, it sued a candidate whose diploma had been suspended after the 2018 cheating scandal for continuing to use the “MS” post-nominal on social media. The case was dismissed on procedural grounds and not refiled.
The Master Sommelier Exams
The Court does not operate a school. It conducts its courses and exams in hotel conference rooms and rented venues. Its program runs four levels:
Level 1 — Introductory: A two-day course ending in a written exam. Pass rates are not published, but the material is considered accessible. 2025 UK fee: £695.
Level 2 — Certified: A written theory exam, a blind tasting, and a practical service component. The Americas chapter reports an average pass rate of approximately 66 percent. This is where many candidates stop.
Level 3 — Advanced: The same three-component structure, significantly harder. Pass rate averages around 25 percent. The Court recommends candidates wait one to two years after passing Certified before attempting it.
Level 4 — Master Sommelier Diploma: The exam the documentary was made about. Theory is a one-hour verbal exam. Service is evaluated in a live restaurant scenario. Tasting requires blind identification of six wines. Pass rate on the Theory component alone sits around 10 percent, and participation requires an invitation. Each component costs $999 in the Americas.
The direct exam fees to reach Master level total roughly $2,910. Industry estimates for the true cost — accounting for study wine, travel, retakes, and years of preparation — put the figure well above $20,000.
The Credential Claim
Following the scandals, the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas began describing itself as an “organizational member” of the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE). That framing deserves scrutiny.
ICE is a private nonprofit that sets standards for the credentialing industry. It is not a federal agency, and it carries no government mandate or recognition. Its credentialing arm, the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), does offer accreditation to organizations that meet its standards — but the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas does not claim to be NCCA-accredited. It is an organizational member, which is a paid membership tier. Being a member of ICE is not the same as being accredited by it, in the same way that being a member of a bar association is not the same as passing the bar exam.
The distinction matters because the Court has historically operated with little external oversight. Exam scores are delivered verbally. Grading criteria are not published. Appeals processes have been criticized as opaque. ICE membership does not change any of that.
The Case for the Court
The honest case for pursuing Court certification starts with the obvious: the Master Sommelier Diploma remains the most recognized service-oriented wine credential in the United States. The exam is genuinely rigorous. The network has real professional value. And the Court has, since 2020, taken meaningful steps toward reform — including replacing its entire board, hiring a full-time CEO, revising its ethics policy, and conducting listening sessions with members.
The case against it is harder to dismiss than it used to be. The exam process still lacks transparency in grading. The credential comes with no independent accreditation of any substance. The path from Introductory to Master costs tens of thousands of dollars in real terms. And the institutional behavior exposed between 2018 and 2021 — the cheating cover-up, the sexual misconduct, the loyalty oath disguised as an ethics policy — raised questions about organizational culture that a new board and revised bylaws do not automatically answer.
Consider Your Options
The Court of Master Sommeliers is not the only credentialing path for wine professionals. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) offers a rigorous academic program through Level 4 Diploma, widely respected in both trade and consumer contexts. The Institute of Masters of Wine, which predates the Court and helped originate the 1969 exam, offers arguably the most demanding wine credential in the world, with an emphasis on written analysis and research. Several university-based programs now offer accredited wine and beverage management degrees.
None of these alternatives carry the specific restaurant-service cachet the Court has built in the U.S. market. But cachet is not the same as quality, and the Court spent years proving it. Anyone considering the investment should make that calculation with full information.