If you want to become a good sommelier ...

If you want to make good wine palatable to your guests, you should know how much work goes into a bottle. You can learn a lot in theory as part of a sommelier training course, but in the eyes of many renowned sommeliers, an internship with a winemaker is priceless.

Specialist knowledge is certainly a profound and indispensable basis for a good sommelier. But between theory and practice lies a crucial learning experience that a budding sommelier should not miss out on. The steps of winemaking, learned in theory, only give an inadequate feeling for the enormous amount of work that goes into the final product.

This is why sommeliers such as Renè Antrag from the famous "Steirereck" restaurant in Vienna recommend an internship at a winery. Anyone who has been present at a grape harvest and accompanied the winemaking process themselves is able to authentically present and sell the value of a bottle to their guests. In my opinion, such an internship also looks very good on a CV.

So it can pay off to bite the bullet and spend a few months with a winemaker. Although the internships are usually unpaid and hard work, especially during the harvest period, they add a special touch to your CV.