The corkscrew: master class

I am always excited to meet a master sommelier because getting that qualification - of which there are only 214 in the world - is a long process and requires much dedication and discipline.

My meeting with Geoff Kruth (a master sommelier since 2008), chairman of the American chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers, took place when he was in Hong Kong to judge the Ruinart Cup, a champagne-based sommelier competition. The contest comprised a blind tasting, for which competitors had to identify the wines by grape, country, age and state what they would pair it with, with a description of their imaginary dish.

The winner was awarded a trip to (where else?) Champagne, France - congratulations go to Yvonne Cheung of Cafe Gray Deluxe.

Kruth is also one of the brains (he's the chief operating officer) behind the Guild of Sommeliers, the website of which, guildsomm.com is an amazing resource for wine geeks. The site hosts podcasts, documentaries, quizzes (you can pit yourself against a master sommelier) and maps. Much of the site is free and, for a small donation, you can access the rest. Kruth and the other guild committee members (most of whom are also master sommeliers) update the site almost daily, and more than 7,000 members use it.

One of the questions I ask all master sommeliers is: "What would you be doing if you were not a master sommelier?"

Kruth started out playing classical guitar (and he still practises almost every day) and studying computer sciences at Sonoma State University, in the United States, until he caught the wine bug - and how could he not in Sonoma, the Californian heartland of wine?

He got involved with wine while working at New York's Balthazar, one of the top restaurants in the US. His path to becoming a master sommelier was fairly smooth - he passed on his second attempt (candidates are allowed three attempts in three years).