Dr. Strangewine, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Sommeliers
Ordering wine in restaurants is easy with the right advisor
Posted: Jan 25, 2012 10:00am ET
If you
drink enough wine in restaurants you'll eventually come across your first sommelier.
Take a deep breath. Fear not. Think of him or her as the lifeguard in that big
pool of wine, ready if you need rescue. And we all need that from time to time.
For the
uninitiated, sommelier is a big, scary French word that roughly means, "No, you
can't have Merlot with sea bass," although I'll admit my translation skills are
rusty.
Pronounced
suh-muhl-YAY, in essence it means, "wine waiter." You won't find one at
Applebee's, which is sort of a shame because if ever there was a restaurant that
required a lot of wine to get through dinner, that's the place. When I was
younger, I drank wine in restaurants for years before I knew sommeliers existed.
Most restaurants in fact don't have someone dedicated solely to wine; only the
ones that take wine seriously do.
The
sommelier oversees the wine list, serves the wine and offers advice on what
wines go best with the chef's food. (And despite the fears expressed by many wine newbies,
rarely have I felt coerced into buying a more expensive wine.)
It's not an
easy job, often thankless. Who, after all, could recommend a good Côtes du
Rhône with the salad course? The good ones make dinner seamless but the bad
ones make you want to order a beer.
Not all
sommeliers, in other words, are created equal. This is a tricky issue because
more often than not I've discovered a wonderful wine from a savvy sommelier's
recommendation, and a good dinner became great. But it's one thing to get
advice on the best wine with your dish and another to be strong-armed into a
wine the sommelier loves.
What that
really means is that sommeliers are prone to the same flaws and ego trips as
the rest of us. For example, there seems to be an intercollegiate competition
to see which sommelier can champion the most obscure region or wine. It's like
a bet: "I'll see your Spanish Verdejo and raise you three Scheurebes."
You can
always tell what sort of sommelier is in charge when you see the list of wines
by the glass. I enjoy learning about and drinking obscure wines as much as the
next guy, but if you don't recognize a single label or variety on the by-the-glass
list, that says something.
Of course,
some restaurants specialize in those sorts of wine lists and that's what makes
them distinctive, but for most restaurants the wines by the glass are the
welcome mat to the rest of the list. We all have favorite comfort foods and
wine is the same way: Sometimes we just want a little comfort. And—gasp—even a glass of Chardonnay with that pork chop.
And sorry,
sommeliers, if it irks you that people want Silver Oak Cabernet or Kosta Browne
Pinot Noir, maybe you need a new line of work. Guidance and advice is good, but
it's your job to serve the customer, not "fix" them. Thankfully,
those sommeliers are in the minority.
What
do you look for in a good sommelier? Do you have any pet peeves? And
sommeliers, what advice do you have for customers?
Do you think the diner that wants Silver Oak is the same person as one who wants Kosta Browne?
My rule of thumb is the more Silver Oak you own, the less knowledgeable about wine you are. Don't really think that applies to KB - and apparently neither does your magazine, at least officially!