10 AUGUST 13-19, 2026 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Blind Faith STEVEN WASHUTA HAS 25 MINUTES AND SIX WINES TO END EIGHT YEARS OF SEEKING REDEMPTION. BY ANTONY BRUNO Steven Washuta knows what it’s like to pass one of the hardest tests in the world. Since its inception, barely 300 people have passed the exam necessary to earn the designation of Master Sommelier, the wine world’s most exclusive and most prestigious title. It’s a test few make the effort to take, and even fewer pass, with a failure rate of roughly 95%. More people have traveled to space than have earned the title of Master Sommelier. Washuta was one of them. Until he wasn’t. The co-owner of the Denver Wine Mer- chant bottle shop is one of a small number of people who have earned the title of Master Sommelier, only to have it taken away in 2018 when an infamous scandal rocked the organization behind the test and the U.S. sommelier certifi cation program. This September, he’s returning for the seventh time to try to win the title back while dealing with additional challenges few others face. “It still bothers me,” Washuta says. “I’ve never fully gotten over it. I’ll never not feel that way, even when I pass it again. I’ll still be like, ‘You took this away from me.’” Six Wines - 25 Minutes Over a decade earlier, Washuta was an en- gineering student at Georgia Tech when he caught the wine bug while spending a semester abroad in France. What started as a mere curiosity grew to a passion so great that he dropped out of school to pursue a two-year degree in enology and viticulture from Walla Walla Community College. Following graduation, he worked in vari- ous wineries, tasting rooms and restaurants, meeting his partner along the way. Among the places he’s worked include Telluride’s Bon Vivant and a stint as wine director for Lidia Bastianich’s Felidia in New York. Wine had become his life, so he started to pursue the various levels of sommelier certifi cation offered by the Court of Master Sommeliers. He breezed through the fi rst three levels of sommelier certifi cation on his fi rst try over the years: the Introductory in 2011, Certifi ed in 2012 and Advanced in 2016, for which the pass rate is only 25%. Then, in 2017, he passed two of the three components of the Master’s test — theory and service — but came up short in the blind tasting portion. That’s not unusual. Only 18 Master Som- meliers have ever passed all three compo- nents of the test on their fi rst try. It’s such an achievement that they give out a special award for those who do: the Remi Krug Cup, a trophy shaped like a large, upside-down champagne bottle. On the fl ip side, the most attempts recorded before fi nally passing the exam is 10, and some people have taken it 17 times and still have not yet succeeded. Service and tasting are no slouch com- ponents of the test. Theory, for instance, is a one-hour verbal interrogation before a panel of judges that covers global wine regions and laws, grape varieties and vintages. Only around 10-15% of candidates pass, but it’s a requirement in order to take the tasting test. Tasting is the sexy part. Candidates have 25 minutes to sample six wines, three white and three red, and provide a thorough deduc- tive analysis of each, culminating in a fi nal conclusion of each wine’s grape variety, country and region of origin, quality level, style, and vintage. To make this determination, candidates must evaluate each wine’s sight, smell, struc- ture and taste based on multiple charac- teristics. Points are awarded for both the fi nal conclusions as well as the deductive reasoning behind them. To rack up enough points to pass, they need to correctly identify four of the six wines. So, yeah ... it’s a diffi cult test. A Sommelier Scandal Washuta passed the tasting portion on his second attempt in September of 2018. He was one of 24 candidates who passed that year, the largest group to pass in any single year before or since. Shortly after, he attended the bi-annual Master Sommelier Sympo- sium, held to welcome new members. He was given a certifi cate and presented with the revered Master Sommelier pin — a gold interior embossed with the bust of Bacchus with a red border. He was starting to make career plans. “I put so much into it,” he says. “I knew I only had to pass it once. And I killed it.” But fi ve weeks later, he got a call telling him that at least four of the candidates had received tasting details in advance on two of the six wines used in the blind tasting fl ight, a major breach of test security. Washuta was not one connected to the scheme, but since the Court of Master Som- meliers claimed it could not determine ex- actly which candidates received the answers, it had to invalidate all taste test results. “I was totally caught off guard,” Washuta says. “I already paid the dues. I was, like, this is my new life, and I was thinking what I wanted to do next with it. Like, where do I go from here? It was a pretty big blow, because I committed so much of my life to it. I thought I was there.” All candidates were given the opportunity to retake the test two months later. Of them, only six passed the second time. Since then, six more have successfully passed the tasting CAFE FIND MORE FOOD & DRINK COVERAGE AT WESTWORD.COM/RESTAURANTS Master Sommelier is the wine world’s most exclusive and most prestigious title. Denver Wine Merchant’s Steven Washuta preparing for his next attempt at the Master Sommelier exam. STEPHEN CARDINALE (STEPHENCARDINALE.COM) STEPHEN CARDINALE (STEPHENCARDINALE.COM)
