21-05-2025
Bottle Shock: How Marc Fennell is Uncorking the Wine Industry's Dirtiest Secrets
At first swirl, the world of wine appears a seductive blend of old-world charm and new-world flair, but beneath the decadent soil of the elitist industry lies a deep, dark secret.
It's easy to fall for the romance of wine. From rolling hills and vineyard vistas to the lure of underground cellars and hidden barrels, there is an undeniable allure behind every label. But is the industry's noble rot really as noble as it claims?
As Walkley Award-winning journalist and self-confessed connoisseur of the second-cheapest bottle on the menu, Marc Fennell reveals in his latest Audible Original, the world of wine is not as glamorous as you might think. In Corked, Fennell takes us inside the sordid underbelly of the viticulture scene, prying open long-cellared secrets that are as dark and sinister as a three-day-old Shiraz. What lies at the bottom of the bottle, he explains, is not a story about wine, but rather, of obsession.
'I think food and drink are actually the best prisms to understand people,' he tells me. 'If you think about your choices of food, what you drink, and what you put in your body, they reveal your culture, your economics, and what you care about.'
'The really interesting thing about Corked is that it isn't a thing that you need to listen to. This isn't a thing for wine nerds. It's actually a show about people who are obsessed…And what happens when that obsession gets completely derailed.'
The new audio investigative series unpacks the incredible true story of the 2018 cheating scandal that rocked the Court of Master Sommeliers to its very core. Held in the highest regard, the wine industry's governing body is responsible for administering qualifications and titles for those talented enough to pass its excessively stringent examination process. But on one fateful morning in September 2018, everything changed.
Allegations that tasting cues had been leaked, just hours before the final exam was to be held, sent the industry into furore and left the board of directors with little option. Within a few weeks of the scandal breaking, the organisation announced that it was invalidating the results of the tasting portion of the exam, effectively stripping 23 of the 24 new Master Sommeliers of their titles. It was a brash decision aimed at saving face, but by then, the damage was done. Scrutiny was mounting on the organisation, and piece by piece, the foundations started to crumble.
'This Court that decides who gets to be in and who gets to be out; how they wielded that power actually ended up really derailing a whole bunch of lives,' Fennell explains. 'As we dug a little bit deeper, it became clear that there's a track record with the Court of Master Sommeliers not being transparent when things go wrong. The cheating scandal was one example of that.'
Throughout Corked, Fennell travels the globe to uncover an intricate world of ego, power, and deception and asks what's next for an industry ripe for cultural transformation. Ahead of Corked's exclusive launch on Audible on May 20, I sat down with the Aussie journalist to talk vines, wines, and the unique characters willing to risk it all to protect them. Truly, this is a story that bears rich fruit.
MoM: Marc, congratulations on Corked. It sounds like an absolutely wild ride. Wine, travel, mystery. I think you've knocked out my perfect Friday evening agenda. What can you tell me about the project?
Well, a couple of years ago, I made the very first Audible Original for Australia, which was a thing called It Burns about the race to breed the world's hottest chilli…I worked with my friend Matt and (since then) we've spent years trying to find a story in the world of food and drink because I love it. I think food and drink are actually the best prism to understand people.
We stumbled across this thing that transpired in 2018 that none of us realised had happened and centred around (and I didn't even realise this was a thing) the Court of Master Sommeliers. There was this scandal where people had been accused of cheating, and it just imploded this very tight-knit community. I was like, 'Why did this cheating scandal happen?' But also, what does it tell you about these people?
MoM: Over the course of the project, you took steps to actually become a sommelier yourself. Were you at all surprised by what you learned about the industry during that process?
I learned that I wasn't very good; that's what I learned. And that's a good thing; it's a good thing to be humbled by these jobs. It's a good thing to put yourself in other people's shoes.
I don't think I'm going to quit my day job anytime soon, but I think one of the beautiful things about this kind of storytelling, and the beautiful thing about doing an Audible Original, is that you put the headphones in, you enter a different world, you enter a different time, but you also get to be a bit complicit. When you're watching television, you're kind of observing it from the outside. When you do an Audible Original, you are putting the audience in the middle of the story.
MoM: It's interesting that you say that. I feel like your style of storytelling involves taking us all on that journey. In a way, you are learning at the same time, which makes it far more interesting.
This is the thing, I'm not an expert and that's not my job. My job is to be professionally curious. My job is to be curious and empathetic and try to piece together the story and unfold the mystery. But the beautiful thing about audio is that we are unfolding it together. I think that's why I love it so much.
MoM: There's certainly a perception about the industry that it is for elites and the upper echelon. Is that true of what you found and if so, how challenging was it for you to break into that inner circle?
Yeah, it really was. There are plenty of people out there who know vast amounts about wine, but actually the really good sommeliers are the ones that stand in the gap between you, I and that big reservoir of knowledge.
The really amazing sommeliers are the ones who make it about you—a human being understanding what you love and what you don't love. They take that reservoir of knowledge and tailor something to you. It's more than a service job. It's care. It's genuinely caring for a person and their taste to make that moment, that meal, that night special. That's the skill.
MoM: Of course, your journey through the industry does take a sordid turn. At what point did you start to realise there was a deeper story to unpack?
Well, it was interesting because all I really knew from the outset was that this scandal had happened, the entire class of 2018 had been cancelled, and everybody was very upset. There were a bunch of things we didn't know, though.
We didn't know that there were these rogue investigations happening, where people within the class split off and tried to run their own investigations. We didn't know that there might've been more to this secret email. We worked out who was behind it pretty quickly because that was reported, but we didn't know who would talk, who wouldn't talk. What I really wasn't prepared for was how much emotional damage the story did.
There's a character in there, Elton, the stress of this literally lands him in hospital. I think Elton is the most intriguing character to me because he didn't ask for this email. He got it, and then he panicked and then he did something that I think he's regretted ever since, which is that he didn't tell anybody.
So for Elton, there's just a series of decisions with disastrous consequences for him. Watching him and also his family navigate that was hard, honestly. It was hard watching this man, who, years after this happened, is still left with a crater in their lives. I wasn't quite prepared for that. As we dug a little bit deeper, it became clear that there's a track record with the Court of Master Sommeliers not being transparent when things go wrong. The cheating scandal was one example of that.
The revelations around harassment that emerged out of that, to me, represent a pattern that needs to be acknowledged. It's worth pointing out that management of the Court has changed, but it still remains something that many, certainly many of the victims, do not feel has been sufficiently acknowledged. That's an important point to make.
MoM: It's no secret that oenophiles border on the obsessive and a true wine-lover will stop at virtually nothing to get their hands on a rare drop. Tell me a little about a few of the colourful characters you encountered whilst making Corked.
We met lots of interesting people and quirky characters, but at a certain point, we were down in the weeds with this story about cheating and secret emails and things and investigations, it was getting very, very down. We were in proper true crime territory. At that time, I was like, it's probably worth just asking the question, 'Why do we care about this?' So we went out to Napa Valley, probably the most famous wine region in the United States and we met this lovely guy named Bertus.
It was a really important thing to do. At that point in the story, everything had devolved, the relationships between people had devolved and we're hearing about the worst behaviour and the worst abuses of power. But then to just take a minute to go stand in a vineyard and realise the life that gives birth to those flavours was really important.
I've never actually thought to go into the vineyards and look around and feel the insects, and the way the scent as you walk through the vines; it was breathtaking. One of the things I love about audio is that the audience is, as I mentioned before, complicit. You want it to live in the theatre of their mind. So just to be there surrounded by these vines and feel the life of the insects and the birds, there's a sort of savoriness to the air.
You can smell the beginnings of the wine around you in a way. I was like, 'Oh, I understand the mystique of this. I understand why you would be pulled into wanting to know as much as you possibly can about this'. Absolutely in that moment, I understood the passion.
I'd spent weeks just being presented by these really obsessive A-type personalities who are taking it very seriously and they're feeling very aggrieved about what happened. I think in that moment, you sort of have to look at it around yourself and go, what is happening? Why are people so obsessed with this? And why did the Court behave in the way that it did to preserve this elite institution? It's important to take steps out of the story to just recalibrate what actually matters.
MoM: So what did you find? What really matters?
There are so many parts of our lives that we can do without human interaction. Now you can sit in a room and just do a whole day of Zoom meetings. You can have everything you want ordered to your door and never encounter another person. And some of that's great; I'm not bemoaning that, but there is something very special about going to a restaurant.
It doesn't have to be a fancy expensive one, it could just be a cafe or a bar that you love, but that moment where a person genuinely creates something for you, that they put care and love into what you're eating, into selecting what you drink so that it matters— that is precious.
I've come to regard it as somewhat of a sacred thing because it's one of those so rare occasions in our life where one human takes care of another, and it's a creative act. It's an empathetic act, it's a compassionate act. It's given me just an enormous amount of respect and gratitude for that interaction, that space that is a restaurant.
