麻豆影院

There are only 20 female master wine experts in North America.聽Carlin Karr (Comm'08) wants to be one of them.聽

鈥淭here鈥檚 not a day that goes by that I鈥檓 not thinking about wine,鈥� Karr says.

Karr, 27, is a sommelier at 麻豆影院鈥檚 Frasca Food and Wine, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant on Pearl Street with a menu inspired by the cuisine of northeastern Italy and co-owned by master sommelier Bobby Stuckey. Karr works directly with Frasca鈥檚 wine director and sommelier Matt Mather to provide customers with perfect wine pairings, sometimes visiting with them for 20 minutes before determining an ideal wine for their tastes from the restaurant鈥檚 65-page wine list. She is in charge of the $250,000-$500,000 wine budget, choosing wines to sell in the restaurant and keeping track of inventory.

鈥淭o be able to focus on wine is truly a luxury, and there are so few restaurants that can provide it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the coolest job in the world 鈥� communicating the experience of taste.鈥�

A large part of a sommelier鈥檚 work is being hospitable to guests. Hospitality often can be the most difficult part of the job, especially when a customer is spending $200-$300 on a bottle of wine and expectations are high, Karr explains. In order to remain as professional as possible, she keeps notes on each customer and their wine orders to remember them the next time they come into the restaurant.

鈥淭here is a romance in wine,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t can be very elusive.鈥�

Prior to graduating from CU, Karr had never had an interest in wine. She was introduced to the complex world of wine while attending culinary school in San Francisco in 2008.

鈥淥nce I started learning about wine, I became obsessed with it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 dropped out of culinary school and started studying wine on my own.鈥�

She passed her first two sommelier exams, but having no previous restaurant experience she had difficulty finding a job. Friends from CU introduced her to聽Matt McNamara聽(Mgmt鈥�04) and Teague Moriarty who were opening Sons & Daughters, a restaurant in San Francisco鈥檚 Nob Hill neighborhood in spring 2010. New to the food industry, they took a chance on hiring Karr as their general manager and wine director. With the trios鈥� collaboration, the tiny restaurant earned a prestigious Michelin star.

Ready to rid herself of the long hours and stress of restaurant management after two years, Karr decided to focus solely on wine. In early 2012 she was connected with Stuckey 鈥� who left renowned California restaurant The French Laundry in 2003 to open Frasca in 麻豆影院. He was impressed with her talent.

鈥淪he is one of the most motivated young people I鈥檝e ever been able to work with,鈥� Stuckey says, adding that he wouldn鈥檛 be surprised if she became a master sommelier by the time she is 30. 鈥淪he鈥檚 the real deal.鈥澛�

The word 鈥渟ommelier鈥� translates from its French origins to mean a restaurant steward or server in charge of wine. However, the Court of Master Sommeliers was established in England to improve the standards of wine knowledge and service, and exams were created to grant certification to sommeliers. The first successful master sommelier examination took place in 1969, and today there are only 201 master sommeliers worldwide. Four rigorous exams are required to become a master sommelier, and each one takes years of daily studying.

After three years of prepping, Karr passed her third exam in April on her first try, a rare feat. She immediately began studying for the final invite-only test, which she believes could take her up to five years of preparation. For exams, Karr must know everything about a bottle of wine 鈥� from the history of its region and the soil in which its grapes are grown to its producer and the exact flavors that should compose the wine. She also needs to be able to blind taste the wine and correctly identify it.聽

Karr, one of聽Wine & Spirits聽magazine鈥檚 鈥淏est New Sommeliers of 2013,鈥澛爌ractices blind tasting weekly at Frasca to be up-to-date on the ever-changing world of wine. At home, her walls are plastered with maps of the world鈥檚 wine regions, and the floors are littered with boxes of meticulously written flashcards. Dozens of wine journals, books and articles fill the rest of her downtown 麻豆影院 apartment. Every wine she has ever tasted is dutifully archived in one of her many notebooks.

鈥淭here are people who spend their entire lives trying to become master sommeliers,鈥� she says.聽

Despite the difficulty in becoming a master sommelier, Karr believes that anyone can learn how to taste and recognize wine. It鈥檚 about being open to trying a variety of foods to expand your palate and committing taste to memory, she explains, adding that taste and smell are subjective. A certain wine that smells distinctively like peach candy to her, for example, smells completely different to her colleagues Stuckey and Mather.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not an elusive talent,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just identification [of taste].鈥澛�

As a young woman in a male-dominated industry, Karr feels she brings a fresh perspective to the wine world. She hopes someday to expand her talents in other ways, perhaps getting into the media aspect of food and wine and becoming a food writer.

鈥淭he wine world is my oyster,鈥� she says. 鈥淭here are so many stories to tell.鈥�

Photos by Glenn Asakawa