Master Somm’s Online Wine Mission

Wine director of the London wine club 67 Pall Mall and chief executive of the European Court of Master Sommeliers, Ronan Sayburn MS is busier than even he imagined.

He has been described as the sommelier’s sommelier, and during this covid-19 crisis, Ronan Sayburn is working seven-day weeks facilitating and hosting wine masterclasses, interviews and live tastings.

“As soon as we began to see a big drop off in trade, Grant [Sayburn’s boss and the founder and CEO of 67 Pall Mall Grant Ashton] said he was going to guarantee everyone 100-percent employment all the way through this, even if it meant getting loans until we got back on our feet… That was really important for the morale of everybody. Now we are all working like crazy.”

Taking wine online

At the start of the crisis, 67 Pall Mall tentatively offered on-line masterclasses, free for anyone to view, and led by some of its regular event speakers, like Jane Anson (on Bordeaux) and Jasper Morris (on Burgundy), along with Sayburn himself. By May the club was running at least 30 webinars per week each attracting up to 600 viewers.

Early on the club hit upon the idea of offering wine to its members to go with the masterclasses and an on-line membership offer has widened the clientele. The club sells packs of six mini-bottles (75ml) for each webinar delivered within the UK and Europe.

Preparing the mini-bottles, which are sparged with inert argon gas, keeps the 67 Pall Mall staff employed and at the time of writing about 14,000 mini-bottles have been despatched.

Despite a stellar rise to be part of the world’s sommelier glitterati, Sayburn remains particularly grounded. Born in Scarborough, northern England, after a hotel and catering management course, Sayburn quickly changed direction from his original plan to become a chef.

Inspired by the late Gérard Basset MS, MW, in 1992 Sayburn landed a sommelier job at Raymond Blanc’s two-Michelin-star Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons. Back then it was rare to see British sommeliers, most were French or Italian.

The Manoir’s head sommelier, Frenchman Henri Chapon MS became his mentor. “He was very black and white,” says Sayburn. “I learned high standards from Henri. There can’t be any excuses or ‘buts’ at a Michelin-star restaurant.”

After a spell in the wine trade, Sayburn won the UK Sommelier of the year competition in 1998 and returned to restaurants. From 2000, he worked for seven years as executive head sommelier for chef Gordon Ramsay in the restaurant group’s heyday, opening up restaurants worldwide, between them gaining nine Michelin stars.

Sayburn declares that his career high was passing the Master Sommelier Diploma (MS) in 2005. “It took me five years plus all the exams beforehand. It is a tough exam with the level of commitment you need … because I was working for Gordon at the time, we were easily doing 18 hour days. I don’t know how I did it, now I think about it. I used to just try to integrate as much as I could studying and tasting during the working day.”

Exhausted and burnt out, in 2007 Sayburn escaped for a few months to learn to be a scuba-diving instructor. But what ended up as 18 months in Thailand and Malta was far from a career low for him. “Earning a pittance as a diving instructor really sharpened up my palate again. When I came back after a year and a half not really drinking any wine, I was so excited – it was invigorating. Everything is a learning experience whether it’s positive or negative – you always take something away from whatever you do.”

So what would he take away from the current crisis. “Things are going to be very different for a long time. We [67 Pall Mall] are probably not expecting to be fully opened till the new year. Even if we are open as a club, we will probably be at one-third capacity. So these online seminars, takeaway food – packed up dinners – are all [becoming] extra parts of our business.”

And how will other sommeliers survive? “One of the things that will come out of this is that sommeliers definitely have to learn to be more business orientated. When we get out of this, the ability to purchase will obviously be much more restrained than it used to be, so they will have to keep an eye on stock levels and lists, and just generally pay more attention to the business side of things.”

© 67 Pall Mall
| The London-based wine club will bring its well-upholstered, oak-paneled elegance to Singapore soon.

Sayburn emphasizes that many sommeliers are capable of working as restaurant managers and servers, but that the opposite is not true. “Sommeliers usually go through that process where they are waiters, head waiters, and assistant managers, then they move into being sommeliers.” To survive, he thinks they must move closer to restaurant management.

For sommeliers in lockdown, who are working towards their MS Diploma or other exams, Sayburn notes that this is a great opportunity to study theory, but also a hard time, because they can’t practice the practical side or do many tastings. The MS exam normally takes place in November but this year’s may be postponed to next January, depending on the situation.

The MS exam controversy viewed from Europe

Wine-Searcher was disappointed in 2018 by the lack of communication from the Court of Master Sommeliers concerning the appalling breach of professionalism that cost many candidates years of study and money, by having their exam results nullified. For Sayburn, who has been chief executive of the European branch since 2018, it has all been a source of frustration.

“What happened was that one American MS who was mentoring a bunch of people really stupidly in a moment of madness hinted to them what some of the wines were. Obviously, he’s lost his MS title, his career has been ruined, he’s been ostracized from the industry, so his life has been destroyed by him doing that. Which is quite sad, but his actions negatively impacted a lot of lives and careers.

“I think that most people accepted that this MS is a human being, who made a very poor judgement call. Both chapters, US and Europe, have very strong security measures to avoid this happening again.”

Singapore calling for 67

The London club is now five years old and Sayburn describes the business before Covid-19 as “comfortable”. The plan was to open an outpost in Singapore this year. “Singapore was the next thing. All that’s on hold. It was due to open in October – we have the lease on the premises and they’ve started on construction.”

Why Singapore? “There’s a lot of knowledgeable wine people, big wine collectors there. Hong Kong is quite saturated and extremely expensive. Shanghai could be on the list for the future, or maybe Shenzhen. But Singapore is a very popular stop-off destination. So, if we’ve got members traveling down to Oceania, they’ve got a home from home there.”

Meantime, back at the computer in London, Sayburn starts his working day with a 10am online staff meeting before hosting the masterclasses through to the evening. He expects them to continue at least once a day after reopening the club, and when things are back to normal, he envisages live streaming club events too. He sees an opportunity with the tasting packs, shipping them worldwide.

Many of the masterclasses have focussed on the classic areas of Bordeaux and Burgundy that 67’s members, many of them collectors, appreciate. “Especially the complicated region of Burgundy; people want to know why every single Pinot Noir tastes different from this hillside and that hillside. That’s our clientele.”

But he adds: “Our job as sommeliers is to look after customers, as in give them what they want, but also try and gently coax them away to new experiences.” The webinars have been far ranging with winemakers and authors presenting from around the world, including (disclaimer) this one.

And is Sayburn himself still inspired by these webinars? He positively oozes enthusiasm. “Last night I was interviewing Jeremy Seysses with Domaine Dujac… and for me going from Austria and Grüner Veltliner to [discussing] oxidative versus reductive Champagne-making with Ruinart’s Frédéric Panaïotis [the chef de cave] has been great. One of the highlights for me was definitely the Harlan tasting we did with Bill Harlan and his estate manager and winemaker … if there’s got to be a first growth in Napa, for me it’s Harlan.”

It may be a while before Sayburn manages to pursue one of his favourite leisure pursuits, diving expeditions exploring wrecks off England’s south coast. Meantime, you will find him on a laptop screen near you.