Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [2]
Who’s Afraid of the Sommelier?
You know him. The middle-aged man with the superior sneer and the ashtray-on-a-chain around his neck. As his telephone-book wine list hits your table, your spirits hit bottom, because you know that the only thing you can count on him for is attitude. No wonder most Americans’ approach to wine in restaurants is “a glass of white Zinfandel, please.”
The sommelier’s function descends from the role of the traditional English butler, among whose duties was looking after m’lord’s cellar, and somehow a snooty outlook became part of the job. These days, however, sommeliers no longer seek to inspire fear. A new breed of young American sommeliers, passionate about wine and dedicated to ensuring a relaxed, flavorful wine experience for every customer, has redefined the term by breaking with tradition and chucking the attitude baggage.
Still, the stereotype remains fixed in the minds of wary diners. More than a decade ago, when I became the first woman cellarmaster at Windows on the World in New York City, my first approach to a table would sometimes startle my guests. They would try to recover and say something polite like, “We expected you to be … taller.” (They really meant older, and a man.) And of course, they also expected that any conversation with me—the “wine expert”—would be impossible, or excruciating, or both—you know, the wine-language barrier. (In reality, I use all sorts of technical terms like delicious.) They assumed that I only drank amazing wines with unpronounceable names and extraordinary prices. (I do serve a lot of these wines, but I drink the best deals I can get, just like you do.) And they feared that I would instantly pass judgment on their value as a person based upon what they chose to drink. (Actually, I just want you to have a wine you like at a price you’re comfortable paying.)
The new generation of sommeliers has totally rewritten the restaurant wine-buying transaction in major ways. No more uppity sommelier means no more guests having to battle for their budget and their dignity. The diner can regard the sommelier with trust rather than trepidation. We emphasize value for the money rather than crazy markups. We push the envelope, with cutting-edge wines and extensive wine-by-the-glass programs, and our customers have responded. All of this is extremely liberating for the wine-buying diner, who should never have been made to feel shackled in the first place. Nowadays, Europeans readily acknowledge that for the best restaurant wine lists and the best wine service, America wins hands down. May the tastevin (that silver tasting-cup-on-a-chain) rest in peace.
Taste Your Way to Expertise
You’re not alone if, when you look at a wine list, all you really see are lots and lots of prices. As we say in the restaurant business, most diners read the wine list from right to left, or price first. Don’t feel self-conscious. In my experience, wine buyers of every budget focus on price and value. And it’s not because they’re cheap. People often choose wine by the price because it has a clear meaning while the rest of the label information may not. But price and quality are rarely proportional, meaning you cannot assume that a twenty-dollar bottle is twice as good as a ten-dollar one. The good thing about price tags is that they help you narrow the field.
And then there are the ratings. Often you will see wines rated on a one-hundred-point scale. But ratings from even the most talented and experienced critics can be problematic, for two key reasons. First, preferences are individual; the wine rating reflects the personal tastes of the critic, and you may not be on the same wavelength. Of course, a skilled critic’s top-rated wine is likely to impress a high proportion of wine drinkers. And that becomes the second problem: Top scores regularly put wines out of reach of the very buyers they are supposed to serve. The demand and price shoot up for the super-scoring wines, and then you either can