Master sommelier Robert Jones (Photo by Eileen Mellon)
There are 273 master sommeliers around the world, 172 in the United States and only four in Virginia. Robert Jones is one of these certified wine specialists, and he lives and works right here in Richmond.
“When you get the MS diploma, you should be able to answer any question with some degree of accuracy and certainty,” he says. “That doesn’t mean you have to know everything, but anything you could possibly ask me about, I should be able to give an educated answer to the point where I could say, ‘I’ve exhausted my knowledge, I’ve got to go to a book now.’”
Jones has held the title of master sommelier since 2001, more than five years after he took the first of four exams required for the designation. Unlike many master sommeliers who work in the world’s premier restaurants and hotels, you won’t find Jones crafting lists at the wine hot spots in the city. He is a longtime employee at Kysela Pere et Fils, a Winchester-based import and distribution company owned and operated by a fellow master sommelier, Fran Kysela, and he’s the brains behind the beverage program at wife Mela Jones’ prepared foods shop, Leek & Thistle in Shockoe Bottom. Jones is also part of the judging committee for this year’s Virginia Governor’s Cup on March 7, a stringent competition where over 750 wines from across the commonwealth are sampled and judged.
Founded in 1977, the Court of Master Sommeliers symbolizes the pinnacle of wine expertise. The prestigious organization has become a beacon of knowledge and hospitality in the global beverage and culinary worlds. Jones says a sommelier is responsible for “everything in a restaurant that you consume that the chef doesn’t make — water, wine, beer, sake, whiskey.”
Becoming a member of the court is no easy task. Connoisseurs of the grape must pass four daunting exams covering topics such as the science behind growing and fermentation, geology, geography, weather, and different varieties of grapes.
“The breadth and depth of the topic is so massive that you have no hope to ever get to the end of the road,” Jones says. “It’s just a question of how far down the road of knowledge I can get before my time is up.”
Jones’ journey started in 1990 after he graduated from Roanoke College. While Jones was waiting tables at the now-shuttered Lamp Lighter restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina, manager Joe Carriker would coach the staff on wine. On his first night, Jones pooled money with fellow employees to buy a few bottles of wine at wholesale cost. One was a $25 bottle of Château Figeac 1982 — a vintage now worth over $600. He was hooked.
Several years later, after a brief stint working at the bygone Savoir Faire restaurant on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where he met Mela, Jones landed in Atlanta. It was there he connected with Michael McNeill, a master sommelier who had recently been named best sommelier in the country by the American Sommelier Association. McNeill, then sommelier at the former Ritz-Carlton hotel in the Buckhead area of the city, informed Jones that he planned to leave his position in a year and was looking for a replacement.
Shortly after, Jones joined the team at the Ritz. Each day, the chef prepared a five-course tasting menu, and Jones was tasked with pairing wine with each course. Jones credits McNeill with plucking him out of the “wandering waiter life” and giving him entry into the hotel’s top-tier dining room during the “height of huge formal service.”
Beyond his immersion in the culinary world, Jones committed himself to six reading sessions per week to learn the theoretical knowledge required for the master sommelier exams. Aside from extensive knowledge and poised service, sommeliers must become masters of description. Which is why Jones can still recall a bottle he tasted nearly three decades ago, an 1876 Château Lafite Rothschild.
“It looked and tasted like the liquid in French onion soup — it had the sweetness from the onions in it,” he says. “It was just sort of caramel-y and beefy, and you could see through it.”
These days, Jones serves as an educator and examiner for all four levels of the examination. Last year, he was elected to a three-year term on the board of directors for the Court of Master Sommeliers.
“When you’re a candidate, you erroneously think that the master sommelier examiners are these Olympus gods who know everything, which of course they don’t. It’s fantastic to be on the other side as an examiner with a clear memory of the candidate experience and to be a ‘city on a hill’ for the candidates,” he says. “It’s crazy rewarding.”
A Roanoke native, Jones says he’s proud to be a Virginian and has great hopes for the state’s flourishing wine scene. Charlottesville was recently dubbed the 2023 Wine Region of the Year by Wine Enthusiast.
“Virginia’s wine future is very bright, but we’re about 50 years into the modern experiment,” he says. “The business is growing, and we’re an infant right now in Virginia. We’re just figuring out what grows best where.”
Though being a master sommelier wasn’t always his goal, Jones says, he’s a student of both life and experience — always curious, sometimes cynical, never resigned. He is also, at his core, an artist, seamlessly creating an atmosphere of unparalleled service, keen description and contagious passion for his field.
“Bottles of wine are history,” Jones says. “They’re tied to a specific place and time. As Virginians, wine is a significant part of our history, and we will continue to build upon that history through developing new wines. I like to think that it’s my role as a historian of the craft to share my knowledge with those around me, and I’m proud to share that with Richmonders.”
