Acquiring competence: Sommeliers on ‘good’ food and beverage combinations

Research on food and beverage combinations is dominated by the sensory sciences, where sensory taste is seen as objective and quantifiable. Knowing which beverages and foods to serve together to attain optimal sensory quality is a core competence of sommeliers. Still, little is known about how this competence is actually acquired. Furthermore, scholars of cultural sociology suggest that cultural aspects of taste as “good” or “bad” are products of social processes, rather than objective characteristics.