If you’ve ever had COVID-19, you may have experienced a dulled sense of taste or a distorted sense of smell that continued even after your recovery. While this is an inconvenience for any individual, it presents a considerable risk to those who depend on taste and smell to perform their jobs.
Tasting and smelling wine are essential factors of being a sommelier. Since the 2020 pandemic, various sommeliers and wine industry workers have experienced challenges tasting and smelling wine. They experienced stress and uncertainty as to whether they’d be able to continue their jobs.
This article will explain what sommeliers do, why smelling wine is such a significant part of their jobs, how the pandemic has affected multiple wine workers and what you can do to help retrain your senses upon recovery from the virus. Additionally, we’ll discuss what the post-pandemic future could look like for these sommeliers.
What Is a Sommelier?
A sommelier is a trained professional with extensive knowledge about different wines and grape varieties. They’re well-informed about the origins and characteristics of wines, proper wine storage practices and how to pair wines with different foods.
Sommeliers also have vast customer service experience. They typically work in hospitality settings, specifically in fine dining establishments. These might include luxury restaurants and hotels, country clubs, cruise ships and casinos. Sommeliers can work in retail settings as well.
Becoming a certified sommelier typically requires some level of formal education, thorough training and previous experience — not to mention a deep passion, drive and appreciation for wine. Depending on a person’s existing wine knowledge and skills, it can take several months of studying and rigorous training to develop an advanced palate and earn a sommelier certification.
Wine Connoisseur vs. Sommelier
You may have heard the term “connoisseur” at some point. A connoisseur is an individual with extensive knowledge about a particular subject, such as food, music or art. One can also be a connoisseur when it comes to wine.
What exactly differentiates a sommelier from a wine connoisseur? A sommelier works as a wine steward in a hotel, restaurant or similar setting. They help manage the wine cellar, serve wines to customers and offer drink recommendations. To become a sommelier, this individual obtains certification through rigorous training and practice.
A wine connoisseur is well-versed and knowledgeable about different wines and grape varieties. Their opinions are highly respected and valued by others. However, they do not obtain the same certification that sommeliers must have, and their level of knowledge isn’t quite as advanced.
Why Do People Smell Wine?
Wine workers typically smell wines before tasting them. This is a vital step of the sommelier wine tasting process because it helps identify and reveal the distinctive aromas of the wine. Because our senses of taste and smell are closely connected, these aromas can help the sommelier sense how the wine will taste. We force air through our nasal passages as we chew, so the sensation of flavor is a concoction of taste and smell.
By smelling a wine before sipping it, you’re preparing your brain for what you’re about to taste, making it an important part of the process. However, the pandemic has greatly affected the ability of many sommeliers to smell and taste wines. In the following few sections, we’ll explore this subject more in detail.
How the Pandemic Has Affected Wine Experts
Smelling and tasting wines to test their flavors and quality is critical to the wine industry’s success. You can imagine the loss of these senses due to COVID-19 took a large toll on wine experts and their livelihoods. The pandemic presented a significant challenge for sommeliers, winemakers and winery owners all over the world. In this section, we’ll look at a few supporting examples.
1. Sophie Pallas from Paris, France
Master wine-taster Sophie Pallas lost her taste and smell after testing positive for COVID-19. She reported it was difficult for her to detect the notes of fresh citrus and exotic fruits of a Pyrenean white wine, which she was able to identify before contracting the virus. Being deprived of these senses sent her into a panic, and she had to retrain both her palate and ability to smell.
In an effort to retrain her nose, Pallas explained that she would deeply inhale different spices, vanilla pods and coffee beans. Today, she can easily identify dominant wine aromas and flavors but still struggles with subtle and complex notes.
2. Dan Davis from New Orleans, Louisiana
Dan Davis serves as wine program head at the New Orleans restaurant Commander’s Palace. After losing his sense of smell from COVID-19, the uncertainty of whether he would be able to continue his line of work terrified him. He would crush garlic into a bowl, try smelling ammonia and test various scents around the house but had no luck.
While Davis believed that his sense of smell had fully returned after his recovery, he also reported that a diner would occasionally send a bottle of wine back to him. Upon assessing the bottle, he’d find nothing wrong with it, making him skeptical of his tasting and smelling abilities.
3. Faure-Brac from Paris, France
Philippe Faure-Brac is one of the best-known sommeliers in France. Losing his sense of smell from COVID-19 heavily impacted his ability to perceive different flavors. He opened a bottle of red Châteauneuf-du-Pape to celebrate his recovery but realized the wine had no unique aroma or taste. He could only detect the alcohol, acidity and tannins, which he reported as tasting “hard and metallic.”
When his taste did start to return, he described it as violent. Wines with only a light amount of wood strangely had an overpowering woody taste. He found himself unable to drink wines that he once enjoyed — all of them were dominated by an unappealing bitterness.
4. Talitha Whidbee from Brooklyn, New York
Talitha Whidbee is the owner of Vine Wine Shop in Brooklyn. Her first indicator of COVID-19 was feeling sick and tired while eating dinner out with friends. She ordered some grower champagne and Chinon wine but claimed that both were disappointing. Whidbee reported foods tasted like Play-Doh. She found herself unimpressed by what should have been wonderful wines.
After recovering from severe symptoms, she still found that her taste and smell were rather dysfunctional. She described pizza as tasting like cardboard. Filling her home with diffusers and other strong scents wouldn’t restore her sense of smell.
5. Wesley Brown from Portland, Oregon
Wesley Brown works as a server at Arden Wine Bar in Portland. Brown experienced severe symptoms in addition to his loss of smell and taste. Though he has mostly regained these senses, he claims that flavors still seem dialed down and that they taste “a little less vibrant” and intense than before. He noticed that sweet tastes, in particular, were blander.
6. Jamie Goode from London, England
Jamie Goode is a British author, wine expert and founder of the WineAnorak blog. He caught the virus at the beginning of March 2020 and reported some strange experiences with wine afterward. While he didn’t entirely lose his sense of smell from COVID-19, he explained it was very distorted. Wines tasted “stony” and “slightly oxidized,” and fruit flavors were no longer present.
Can You Train Your Senses to Smell Again After COVID?
After reading these examples of sommeliers, tasters and experts who’ve all struggled with taste and smell due to COVID-19, you may be wondering if it’s possible to retrain these senses and fully regain the ability to taste and smell.
A British study suggests that there may be a form of special training to help people regain their sense of smell — specifically for those experiencing parosmia. This condition causes odors to smell strange and distorted.
This training process involves smelling at least four different aromas twice a day for several months. The goal of this practice is to help the brain reorganize itself through neuroplasticity to detect different smells again.
Each study participant was given different smell training kits consisting of various odors, such as the following:
- Lemon
- Eucalyptus
- Cinnamon
- Rose
- Chocolate
- Lavender
- Coffee
- Honey
- Strawberry
- Thyme
The study showed that older people were more likely to recover their sense of smell through this training. Additionally, the largest improvements were seen in those who had lost the most smell function from COVID-19. Consistent smell training helped spark regeneration in their nasal pathways.
Though this study was actually carried out before the pandemic even started, researchers believe their findings could help those who lost their senses from the virus.
If you’re still experiencing warped tasting or smelling abilities after recovering from COVID-19, here are some steps you can take on your own to help regain your senses:
- Choose and line up four essential oils.
- Take gentle whiffs of each scent for 25 seconds. While you’re smelling each one, imagine what it looks and feels like. Think of a memory that involves this particular scent.
- Practice this exercise twice a day — morning and night — for about three months. If your senses still haven’t fully returned after this time, find four new oils and try repeating the exercise.
How Long Does It Take to Regain Your Sense of Smell and Taste After COVID?
Though it can take varying amounts of time to regain these abilities, most people get their sense of smell back within six months. Some may continue to experience distorted smelling abilities while others’ senses fully return to normal — this tends to be a different experience for everyone. Let’s look at some examples of how long it’s taken some sommeliers and other wine industry workers to regain their sense of smell and taste:
- Charles Philipponnat, a champagne-maker from France, took six months to regain these abilities.
- It took sommelier Faure-Brac five months to smell and taste accurately again, though he is still somewhat sensitive to resin and wood flavors.
- Lisa Denning, a wine writer at Grape Collective, took about three weeks to gain most of her taste and smell back.
- Kelsey Glasser, a sommelier and bar owner from Portland, took two weeks to fully regain her taste and smell.
- Sommelier Dan Davis completely recovered his sense of taste and smell three months after contracting the virus.
The Future for Sommeliers Post-Pandemic
Thankfully, things are looking up for sommeliers as the wine industry begins to bounce back. Because COVID-19 restrictions have started to ease up all over the world, many wineries and restaurants have started to allow tastings again, even if appointment bookings are required.
Though foot traffic in these businesses may have decreased, Oregon’s wine board president explained that customers are purchasing more wine at tastings than ever before. He believes this is largely due to more personalized visitor experiences with smaller crowds.
Despite the chaos of the pandemic, Oregon has also experienced some other victories in the wine industry — three of the state’s white wines made the Wine Enthusiasts’ top 100 list in 2020. Additionally, the number of wineries in Oregon showed a 10% increase, bringing this total to nearly a thousand wineries across the state. And while the state’s wine industry experienced multiple setbacks from the pandemic, some grape growers reported 2021 as the best vintage in 25 years.
Will sommeliers be able to continue their line of work even if their abilities to taste and smell haven’t been fully restored? Even if sommeliers can not yet smell or taste wine properly, there may be alternative solutions that would allow them to continue working in the wine and hospitality industry.
Sommeliers’ skills are versatile and easily transferrable, opening them up to a variety of other career options. They could reasonably become restaurant managers and still help manage the wine list.
Additionally, the pandemic has shown a rapid increase in digital marketing and workplace technology for businesses all over the world. For the wine industry, these improvements include updated e-commerce bar websites and more online masterclasses. This opens up another opportunity for sommeliers — they could use their extensive wine knowledge for educational purposes by teaching in-person or virtual masterclasses.
However, through lots of patience and practices to help retrain the senses, sommeliers who’ve previously lost these senses or have experienced distortions from COVID-19 can likely restore these abilities. This way, they can continue to smell properly, learn to taste wine notes once again and do what they love.
Browse Wines From Marketview Liquor
Reading multiple accounts of how the pandemic has affected sommeliers reminds us never to take our smelling and tasting abilities for granted. This also reminds us of how wonderful it is to smell and taste wine.
If you’re looking for delicious wines full of unique aroma and flavor, we offer an extensive variety at Marketview Liquor. Whether you’re searching for the perfect red, white, rosé or champagne, we’ve got it all. You can shop from our unique selection to find your favorite brands and varieties. With our easy online ordering options, you can have your bottles delivered right to your door.
Let us help you find the perfect wine to satisfy your preferred taste and sweetness level. Browse our wines online today!