Checking in with Doug Frost on the launch of Best USA Sommelier Association

Doug Frost, the Kansas City-based American Master of Wine and Master Sommelier, is one of the world’s foremost wine experts. He took some time out of his schedule to talk with tasteMAKERS’ host and producer, Cat Neville, about the launch of the brand-new Best USA Sommelier (BUSA) Association, an organization that will be focused on training American sommeliers to compete on the world stage. Beyond the goal of elevating the game for American sommeliers, Doug and the others behind this new organization are focused on making American wine more inclusive and actively seeking members of color as well as women, groups that historically have been under-represented in the wine industry.

Cat Neville - Doug, you have some pretty exciting news! You are launching a brand-new sommelier organization called The Best USA Sommelier Association, right?

Doug Frost - Exactly that, yeah. Thank you, Cat for your kind words. Certainly, there have been chapters of the ASI, as it's called. It's an international organization called the Association of International Sommeliers. And there has been previously an American chapter of that group, but it's been moribund for some time. So, it was time for the US to participate again, because essentially this is the international competition for all sommeliers worldwide. They get together once every two or three years and they all compete against each other to see who will be crowned the best sommelier on the planet. And the US has basically sat aside for many years. It off and on has tried to participate, but we're creating this organization so that the US has a support system for those candidates, those sommeliers who want to try and compete at the highest level, that they will be able to prepare and compete here, compete in the Western Hemisphere against the rest of “The Americas” as it's called, and then finally compete in the global competition.

Cat - So let's kind of zoom out a little bit. I'm a little bit fuzzy and I think probably some other people are as well. How is becoming a certified sommelier different from these types of competitions? Are they intertwined? Are they separate? How is it different?

Doug - Yes, they're certainly very separate … the Court of Master Sommeliers is an examining body that examines and certifies sommeliers at the certified level, the advanced level, and certainly then finally the master sommelier level which is something that I completed a long time ago and which now, 300 or so humans around the planet have completed.

But those are exams. And this instead is a competition in which master sommeliers from around the globe or sommeliers, whether or not they have been certified by the Court of Master Sommeliers. They're all competing at the highest level against each other to see who will be crowned.

Cat - So when someone is competing, what are you actually testing them on? And how do you test them?

Doug - Well, there are many different layers to a good competition. Certainly, one of the most straightforward layers of all is simply information that you'll be asked to explain. Just this afternoon, someone said, "what is this?" And sent me a copy of a label that said Roche aux Moines. And it was fun to be able to say, “Oh, well, Roche aux Moines. I have some of those in the basement. It's my favorite Savennières.”

In a competition setting someone could say, "Please bring me a Roche aux Moines. What vintage would you recommend?” And you would then therefore need to be able to say, “Oh, well, it basically means, the ‘monk’s rock,’ if you will. And it's a special place in this vineyard called Savennières. It's 100% Chenin Blanc, but often because of the flinty soils it can be rather steely and rather unusual. It's a dry white wine that's very earthy and very minerally. And I would recommend, in fact, buying the wine that's 10 years old, rather than one that's young.”

And these sorts of questions are going to be thrown at you throughout a competition to explain what a wine is where it comes from, what to expect, and most importantly how to use it. What should I, if I'm going to have a Roche aux Moines, what should I be consuming with it? And that can happen for virtually any wine made anywhere in the world. So that's the sort of theory side of it.

But then there's the sales side of it in which I need to be able to explain to a customer why it would be fun to have that wine what makes that wine so different and alluring and really in fact, sell that wine in such a way that it's exciting to the people sitting at the table, that it sounds like, “I should have that. I've never had an experience like that before. Please let's do that.” And so, you would be judged on your ability to sell but also on your ability to read the customer. Because one of the things that happens in a competition setting, is all customers are not alike. So, you need to decide, you know some customers want a lot of information some want to be sold, some already know what they want. And you as a server ought to be very adept at reading your customer and responding in a manner that seems appropriate.

I still remember years ago, going to George V in Paris and meeting a very young sommelier there. I stayed in contact with him actually over the years because I was completely amazed by his ability. He came to our table; it was six Americans. We're a bunch of knuckleheads. We're having a great time. We're joking around. Just goofing around he's goofing with us and the table next to us, it appeared to be a French general and his family. I mean, they were so staid and so buttoned down and he absolutely embodied that persona for that table as well. I was just amazed at his ability to read the table and to respond in a manner that made those people most comfortable.

So, there's that, and then certainly one could argue – and I think this is the part where it gets a little dicey – what is the appropriate food to have with any particular wine? That's a very subjective thing. So that part of it, I think anyone would find difficult to judge and I will admit that I find it difficult to give someone advice as to how to prepare for that other than, have an explanation. It's all those things then finally there's just the pure grace at the table that some people have and others don't …

Cat - Have a bedside manner as it were?

Doug – Yeah, absolutely. I find that also difficult to judge but easy to see when it's there. That's the part that's quite fascinating is when somebody is pretty good at it, you struggle a little bit as to how you grade them but when somebody is great at it you just look back, look at them and go, "That was amazing. That's beautiful." I feel like I'm watching ballet. So, it's easy to see when it's great.

Cat - That's fantastic. In the past wine has been seen as being kind of stuffy … but it really is about opening people up to the world of wine. The sommelier is the guide to the people at the table or the people in the shops. Your vast library of knowledge is at the service of the people who you are speaking with.

Doug - Absolutely. I do think that that's one of the critical elements to judging anyone in a sommelier setting is, are they humble? Are they compassionate and giving? Are they most concerned about the customer's well-being rather than their ability to show off? There's nothing really, frankly, there's nothing ruder than someone who wants to tell you at the table how much they know when that's not really what I wanted. I wanted you to bring me a wine that I want to drink. I don't need you to tell me that this is the perfect wine and I should learn to like it, even though I don't want to drink that wine … My job is to bring people to wine they want to drink. Not the wine I think they should drink. So, it's really important, I think, for winning sommeliers to have that kind of humble ability to interact and connect with the people they're serving.

Cat - And so why is now the right time to launch this new competition and why have a new competition? What purpose is this going to serve?

Doug - I think that we've needed it for a long time. First and foremost, I should have been more proactive about this a long time ago. Our society is under enormous pressure and here are a lot of questions being asked about my industry – about the wine industry and the restaurant industry – that have been asked for a long time. But we're just now hearing the questions. Many of us have ignored the fact that people of color have been overlooked and shouted out as it were. And certainly, women have been treated the same way. The level of sexual harassment that is endemic in the restaurant and bar trade is legendary. And it's not a myth. It's real.

So, to me, in a way it was like, this is the right time for us to launch this because we want to launch it the right way. We want to launch it by focusing upon, if you will, throwing the doors open and making sure that everyone is invited in, and it doesn't become yet another white male bastion of a bunch of guys, comparing their incredible breadth of knowledge instead of remembering what the purpose is. Which is to make customers feel wanted, feel taken care of and therefore, interested in wine and wanting to come back and do it again.

Cat - When is this new competition being held?

Doug - Well, our intention is … over the next six months or so to provide online examinations so that people can slowly find their way through this process. And then we'll end up with a group of sommeliers who will be competing in the fall. Ideally, the first week of October, they’ll be competing for the right to go to [Best Sommelier of the Americas] competition. That's to say, to compete against all the sommeliers of Canada and Mexico and South America to see who will win the crown of top sommelier in the Americas. … Those top two sommeliers that are chosen this fall will theoretically be the United States representatives at the [ASI World’s Best Sommelier Competition] in 2023 in Paris.

Cat - So historically, how have the Americans stacked up?

Doug - The United States has never certainly never won the competition. There have been US-based sommeliers who have done quite well, but most of them came from other countries and they were simply here for a time. The U.S. has not placed well because we haven't really been very active in the program. And then one of the great challenges has been that … it's an international exam. Therefore, if you are a native English speaker you must take the examination in French or Spanish. And conversely, if you're a Spanish speaker then you will be taking it in French or English, et cetera, et cetera. So, one of the struggles that US-based sommeliers have had is that few of them are bilingual. We did have a competition in 2019 – it was a smaller competition. It really was for me, a proof of concept. I wanted to show people that we could do this. I wanted to bring in some international judges that would help me make sure that we were going about this and getting started the right way. And we chose a gentleman named Dustin Chabert who is a sommelier based in Chicago who's American born, but was raised in a French-speaking household. And so he did well in that examination but I think it is still one of the great challenges. Our population is not as comfortable in other languages as many other countries’ populations are.

Cat - So, other than the language barrier, how are United States and European sommeliers different or how are the competitions different?

Doug - I think that most of all, our people just haven't seen the competitions. Often not knowing what's to come means that you're sort of a deer in the headlights for a lot of it. I and others tried to prepare Dustin as best we could. And when the competition was over and he had done well, but certainly had not placed in the top group, we all recognized that we have a lot to learn as to how to best prepare our people. So, it's going to take a few years for sure. I don't think there's anybody who has any illusions that in the first couple of tries that the U.S. is gonna go over there and kick butt. But it would be pretty cool if we did.

Cat - You've mentioned that people will be doing these forums online? How does all of that work?

Doug - Well, as a group we'll come together online only at this point, but bestUSAsommelier.com is where people will register and become members … this group will be a democratic group in which everybody who is a member can decide who the board is and decide who's in charge. It's very important to me that we are democratically run [and] we therefore will constantly be held to the standard of reflecting back to our membership who we are as a nation, who we are as an industry. Having said that, those who are working sommeliers or at least have a history of being working sommeliers can then register to become competitors. And then, yes, there'll be a series of online examinations. Finally, they'll be sent blind wines.

They'll be doing a live online examination because in the COVID era I think that's the only responsible thing to do. But our hope is that enough people will be vaccinated, that will feel safer to travel, so that a small group of folks will come to [the Husmann Nursery and Farm] in Hermann, Missouri, the site of where George Husmann lived. Most people don't realize in the 19th century, he was one of the fathers, one of the pioneers of American viticulture and American grape growing not just in Missouri, because that's certainly where … his former winery and vineyard and house … all of that is restored. He went to Napa Valley and helped create the late 19th century, eventually modern, Napa wine industry as well. So, we'll go to his location and we'll actually have a live exam and a live competition there for the final group of competitors.

The BUSA competition will be held in October, 2021, at Hermann Farm in Hermann, Missouri, the former home of George Husmann. He was one of the key figures in establishing the American wine industry during the 19th century. The entire farm has been r…

The BUSA competition will be held in October, 2021, at Hermann Farm in Hermann, Missouri, the former home of George Husmann. He was one of the key figures in establishing the American wine industry during the 19th century. The entire farm has been restored, including Husmann’s home, which is pictured here.

Cat - You stole my question! I was going to ask you about that because, God willing that we can have the live competition in October and be able to have it in Hermann, Missouri, and tie in the relatively unknown history of this German immigrant whose family settled right there along the Missouri River. And didn't he also have an impact on the phylloxera epidemic, sending rootstocks?

Doug - Yes, he really did. He was obviously a brilliant man. And there were others involved here in Missouri. People like Charles Valentine Riley and such. But [Husmann] was one of that really tiny group of people who quickly recognized here's the problem. The problem is a microscopic bug. The bug lives in America. … Well, what had happened in the 1860s is people were trading material, plant material back and forth. And so the bug got into France. And once it got to France, it just went nuts. And it went basically into every vineyard in the world, every vineyard in Europe, destroying all these traditional vineyards. Husmann surmised that, amongst a handful of other people, that since [phylloxera] came from America all we need to do is grow American vines. But since we wanted to taste wine from European vines, we graphed them together. And so he was creating grafted rootstock and creating rootstock that would survive the trip that could be grafted over in Europe. Husmann was instrumental in sending thousands of plants over to Europe so that people could rescue the European vineyards. And to this day, I don't know a precise number, but I would say well over 90% of the world's vines are planted onto American rootstock. No matter whether we're talking about Europe or South Africa or Australia or New Zealand or wherever it is.

Cat - That I think is probably mind blowing to a lot of people. And the fact that you're actually going to be hosting this brand new sommelier competition, at Husmann’s home base, on the ground where he planted his own vineyards and made wine with his family. I think that's extremely cool. So, one of the things that you mentioned is that you've never competed. (Doug laughs) Right?

Doug - This is true. No. It's true. Living in the middle of the country as I did, I mean I'm originally from the West coast, but we moved to the Midwest when I was a kid. And so living in Kansas City, what I knew about these competitions, what I knew about examinations like the Master of Wine or the Master Sommelier was only what I read in magazines. I tried to get involved in the Master of Wine and in the midst of getting signed up for that, a friend of mine who lived in California told me about the Master Sommelier exam. And so I went and took the advanced exam with two weeks’ notice. (Doug laughs) One of those ridiculous things because I'd never heard of it. I didn't even know it existed. And he's like, "Oh, it's in Chicago in two weeks. You should just go take it, just skip the first two exams and just take the advanced exam.” And I managed to get through, but by the skin of my teeth I've no doubt about that at all.

And the issue, I guess what I'm trying to say is I really was ignorant of all these things. It wasn't until I'd finished those exams – the Master Sommelier and the Master of Wine – in the early ‘90s that I even discovered there were these competitions. They weren't active in the United States. But I heard about them at the same time I was a working stiff selling wine on the street. I didn't have the money to go to Europe and find out what these competitions we're like. So it never occurred to me until probably 10 years after I'd finished both exams. People started saying, "Why don't you compete? You're one of the guys that knows all this stuff. You're ready for that.” And it was like, that was 10 years ago, man.

You know, you don't have to keep taking the exam every year. Once you've finished those things, you kind of say, hey, I've got work to do now. I gotta make a living. So unfortunately, I never found the time, never really believed that it was something that I needed to do. Let's face it, at the time, I was one of only two people in the world who had both titles. And it really wasn't until the third gentlemen finished which was in about the year 2000. And he started competing and winning. … People started teasing me saying, why don't you go, keep him honest. I was like, I'm so not ready anymore. And I don't have the time to spend getting ready again.

I think at that point, it became obvious. I should help other people. That should be my task, that I should see, how can I help other people get prepared? How can I help other people finish these exams? And so that's what I've spent the last 25 years doing – helping people get through the MW and get through the MS.

Cat - Well, the Best USA Sommelier Association sounds like it is the culmination of exactly what you said wanted to do, which is to assist others and to uplift them. I thought it was really interesting that when we first started talking, you mentioned that bringing more people into the conversation about wine was one of the driving factors behind this. And I thought it was also quite interesting that you mentioned that the reason why you never competed was because you living in Kansas City, just were not even aware. Your personal experience is leading to an understanding that you have to broaden the opportunity for people because a lot of folks probably just don't even know. So, before we sign off, go through the basics with me on how can people get involved? What are the steps?

Doug - The doors are open to anybody and we appreciate anybody who wants to become a member. Essentially, we've created four categories of members. Certainly the sommelier members are those who are going to be voting and able to decide where the organization goes. But indeed the wine trade, the industry itself is welcome to join – they won't have a voting role, but they can still certainly join as well. Consumers, we have a category just of friends of the organization.

Cat - I will join that one.

Doug - And then of course, you know, institutional or corporate entities are welcome to join, but aren't allowed to have a voting role because to us it's very important that we are constantly reminded that we're responsible to the sommelier community. That that's who we ought to be talking to. And so our hope and goal certainly is to create a fund so that we can provide scholarships to people who will need it, whether it is to learn more about this process or to go and compete.

bestUSAsommelier.com is where people can go and register to become members, or just to find out more about it.

So it's our hope that we can grow a robust community. And really, as I say, be tested and have our feet held to the fire that we really will find ways to involve people of color and to be more respectful towards women in all of this. It's time for the industry to grow up and to be responsible. And I think that because we're starting out now we have a chance to start from a clean slate and do it right from the beginning.

Cat - I am so thrilled that you took some time out of your schedule to talk with me about this Doug. Like I said, Doug and I have known each other for years now and being such an accomplished wine professional, you are the person who is perfectly suited, and being located right in the middle of the country, you're also perfectly positioned to pull more people into the conversation about wine, and to make it a much more democratic, small D, experience for people. … The fact that you are really working to deepen and broaden the diversity and the openness of the American wine professionals is just going to make it that much better for consumers. So I think cheers to you.

Doug - Well, thank you. That's very kind and yeah, that's definitely our goal so we should be held to that.

Cat - So Doug and I will catch up in a couple of months as he is getting closer to the competition in October in Hermann, Missouri. Thank you so much, Doug. I really appreciate it.

Doug - Well, thank you, Cat. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.

Cat - Absolutely. We'll be in touch soon.

Catherine Neville