SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Yoichi, Japan: To hear Toru Takamatsu’s soft yet distinctively Australian accent drift across the vineyard of a boutique winery on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido is as disarming as it is surprising.
The verdant sloping hillsides of the small township of Yoichi are, at first glance, an unlikely place to find the Sydney-born wine wunderkind.
Toru Takamatsu at Domaine Takahiko winery in Hokkaido, where he works as an apprentice winemaker.Credit: Christopher Jue
In 2019, Takamatsu became the world’s youngest-ever master sommelier when, at 24, he passed the industry’s notoriously difficult masters exam – the highest credential that can be achieved by sommeliers and one earned by fewer than 300 people since the course was created in 1969.
His achievement instantly set the elite wine world abuzz and put him on track for a six-figure career at the world’s top restaurants commanding sought-after wine lists.
But for the past four years, he has traded this path for the gruelling soil-and-toil work as intern, or apprentice, winemaker at Domaine Takahiko, a small but renowned owner-operated winery, for the humbling salary of about $30,000 a year.
A vineyard in Yoichi, on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
Sitting at a dusty makeshift table inside the winery’s small onsite facility next to barrels of its signature pinot noir, it’s clear that master sommelier status has not gone to Takamatsu’s head.
“When I was first starting out [10 years ago] I couldn’t tell the difference between pinot noir and a cabernet,” the 29-year-old says.
“I was just buying some wines from bottle shops, trying some different wines, and I just thought they were all interesting.”
Since then, Takamatsu has blazed a trajectory from wine-curious barista working in Sydney’s coffee scene to master sommelier within four years, a feat practically unheard of in elite wine circles, where even those with a decade or more experience struggle to pass the exam.
He parlayed his interest in palate and flavours – something he’d picked up from his dad, a Japanese chef who arrived in Sydney from Tokyo on a working holiday visa in the 1990s – from coffee into wine, and by 21 he was set on becoming a sommelier. He began working entry-level restaurant shifts at top venues such as Rockpool, growing his exposure to high-end wine lists, and soon had his sights set on the invite-only master sommelier exam.
For an industry that can seem infused with pretension and sophistry, master sommeliers are the bona fide experts whose knowledge of grape varietals, nose and mouth feel for an infinite number of wines can seem savant-like. But Takamatsu says this comes down to training – hours and hours of it – more than natural talent.
Toru Takamatsu, 29, has traded the world of elite restaurants for the vineyards of Hokkaido as he sets out to make his own wine after becoming the world’s youngest ever master sommelier.Credit: Christopher Jue
“There are very few people who are naturally talented and can say ‘this is this wine’. But I have not yet met anyone who can pick it 100 per cent,” he says.
“A lot of it is theory. If it comes from a certain region, you can basically see what it tastes like. You don’t have to know exactly, but you know what to expect.”
This process of being able to identify wine from a blind tasting is a crucial part, and the most-feared part, of the masters exam – and a key contributor to the test’s 90+ per cent fail rate.
The exam is the fourth and highest certification offered by the Court of Master Sommeliers and contains three parts: an oral test, a service exam and the blind tasting exam. The blind tasting requires candidates to correctly identify six wines (three reds, three whites), down to the grape variety, country of origin and vintage, before a panel of judges, all within 25 minutes.
While the exam’s reputation was well-established in wine communities, the 2012 documentary Somm put a public spotlight on the extreme levels of dedication, bordering on unhinged, of those invited to take the test.
It followed candidates as they put their lives on hold, strained their relationships and frayed their nerves to breaking point as they swilled, swished, sucked and spat out countless wine varieties while poring over textbooks and flashcards trying to commit characteristics, vintages and wine regions to memory.
Takamatsu says the torment of the MS student lives up to the reputation, but his own path was less torturous. Nonetheless, he estimates he spent about $50,000 on wine over three or four years as he prepared for the test.
“I’m not that person who can study for six hours straight. I’m a bit more laid back. But you are always thinking about wine. Before you sleep you’re thinking: what’s this sub-region of wine? That’s the life of the MS student.”
When he failed his first blind tasting attempt in 2018, he levelled up. Together with a friend who was also prepping for the exam, they began holding weekly tasting sessions, pooling their wine collections.
“I just felt that I hadn’t tasted enough. I could feel that when I was doing the exam, that I was not ready,” he says.
“We had about 60 bottles, and then we’d blind each other. We’d do a full set every week. We’d spend one hour – three whites, three reds.”
By the time he retook the test the following year, he had been working at London’s Hide restaurant for more than a year and was sharpening his palate on a 7000-strong wine list.
After conquering the exam, Takamatsu returned to Sydney and worked for a stint at the Justin Hemmes-owned Merivale venues Fred and Mimi’s, just as the hospitality industry was being rocked by COVID. It prompted him to reassess his career path.
He recalled the bottle of unique pinot that he and a friend had drunk in a Tokyo restaurant in 2017, and it led him to Domaine Takahiko’s door. The apprenticeship comes with the commitment from the local government that, once finished, he will have access to his own plot of land to start a winery, where he wants to grow chardonnay.
Takamatsu says he is not walking away from the craft of sommeliers, whose artistry lies in bringing to life the narrative of the wine to the tableside buyer, but shifting from storyteller to creator.
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