That has become the MO for this place lately, unfortunately. There are quite a few threads that are ultimately political in nature, and belong in politics. They’ve smudged the lines by allowing political topics on the pretext that the topic has some relationship to wine, and that makes it fair game. You’re exactly right that the phrase “diversity and inclusion” is fundamentally a political statement. Personally, I think the real problem is that Todd and his mods largely share the same biases. A huge mistake IMO, but it’s his forum.
The MS’s I’ve interacted with have all been dedicated to their field, very knowledgeable, and not pompous. The excellent Matt Stamp (Compline in Napa) once corrected me about the aging requirements for Barolo; I argued with him but he was right. Very irritating. The educational material on their site seems to me excellent.
The wine business is overall not at all diverse, at least in my experience. Maybe that’s a problem the whole sector has to deal with, not just the MS.
Check the name of the forum, the name and description of the subforum, and the rules around posting. Would you prefer I call it a religious issue? Will you at least allow that it is not about wine?
Sorry guys, but my sense is that “diversity and inclusion” are completely social and completely apolitical. My position is that if you want to claim that they are inherently political, then I really question your politics.
Oh well, in my opinion this thread completely belongs in “wine Talk.” We can all disagree, but that doesn’t make our disagreement political.
I was also in the MW process, IIRC same time as Oliver.
Were some of the MWs outrageously pompous? You bet!
Did anybody ask to be called ‘Master’? Not in my hearing, or I would have made an extremely noisy exit.
The GuildSomm releases survey results every year. If I remember correctly the AVG salary for a MS is >$120,000 while AVG Salary for Advanced is =$80,000ish.
Just read through. Brian is definitely one of the MS that I gravitated towards in the early days of my wine journey. To see him go is a big deal, but not surprising. He’s really gone down a different path in the last couple years, emphasizing environmentalism and other emerging aspects of wine that don’t exactly gel with the traditionalism of the CMS. I imagine this was a long time coming, accelerated by Betts’ resignation, BLM and diversity issues. The cynical take is that at this point Brian has built a strong following and doesn’t really need the CMS or his title anyway. In any case, I commend him for articulating his values and aligning his action to those values.
