What do you call yourself. I invariably go by Tracy (often misspelled as Tracey); Tracy Ellen; Dr. Kamens; Ms; and have even been known to respond to Yo! They all work depending on the place and circumstance, but I recently came across an interesting situation.

I was out in a wine bar with a group of friends — yes, I know I must be a glutton for punishment, dining in a wine bar, even when off-duty, but I guess the truth is I really like wine. Anyway, my well-meaning friend, Stephanie, told the server that I was a sommelier. My OCD kicked in and I felt obliged to correct the label as I am many things, but I am not a sommelier. I explained to the server that I was in fact a wine educator and not a sommelier.

My friend apologized, but was confused. She didn’t understand the difference between the two and to her, the term sommelier made sense. As a lay-person, she was familiar with the sommelier title and knew it to be a good thing as someone who was very educated about wine and could help advise others. My concern in distinguishing my role as a wine educator from that of a sommelier to my friend was to qualify my lack of experience in the service/restaurant setting as well as to reinforce my emphasis on education as my raison d’etre. I’m not sure I fully succeeded, but she probably won’t ever call me a sommelier again.

One term that I don’t ever feel comfortable using is the term wine expert. I don’t think that I will ever achieve expert status in my mind — there is always too much to know and things are changing, making it difficult to keep current with every wine region, producer, vintage, etc. I am also careful to call myself a wine writer and not a journalist as I have not spent any time in J-school (Journalism School) and have tremendous respect for those that have.

As a wine educator, my experience with Stephanie shows that there is a need to better educate consumers as to what various wine titles mean. Moreover, if we are going to flaunt our wine credentials, consumers need to understand the value of these various credentials if they are to have weight with this group. Through such education, consumers will then have more appreciation for wine professionals who have pursued and successfully completed rigorous training, which should also provide some accountability as consumers will also have an expectation of what that wine professional’s title(s) indicate.

Other people might care less about titles, but my aim is not to reinforce hierarchy, but rather to correctly identify who I am as a wine professional, what knowledge one should expect from me and what I do with my knowledge and experience (I educate/teach others). If you disagree with my approach and want to call me names, feel free, but just don’t call me late to dinner ;-).