In the beginning, I created a vision. At the genesis of my interest in a career enveloped by wine, I conjured an image of days and nights spent in a profession of esteem, of glamour, even romance… as a sommelier. I saw myself striding a restaurant expanse, imparting my wisdom to an adoring public: the admiration of starry-eyed women and the clandestine veneration of envious men. I envisioned a vast cellar with vaulting brick archways and subdued lighting as I graced the walnut hardwood in patent leather shoes I can now afford with a paycheck commensurate to the value of my expertise. The office where I would work is redolent with aromas of deckle-edged wine tomes and remembrances of Meursault’s past. Here, glass in hand, underneath a baroque backdrop of framed wine maps, I would review my inventory checklists while listening to the sultry overtures of a Chet Baker album.
Then I became a sommelier. I quickly realized just how wrong my vision was.
More time is spent on the job breaking down cardboard boxes than in pouring wine. The cellars are more often just glorified (and overstuffed) closets, or simply a small cabinet with a faulty air conditioning unit. Busy restaurants are frenetic and cramped and most guests are either intimidated or unimpressed with your presence or pin. The hours are long and exhausting, and unless you are a part of the management team, the sommelier (despite often having managerial duties) is paid less than the serving staff they oversee. No patent leather shoes. No Chet Baker.
Quiz the general population about their opinions about sommeliers, and average responses will demarcate a line between complete awe and complete ignorance. Most people struggle to even pronounce it correctly (to be fair, I often wonder myself). So what is it actually like to be the designated sommelier of a restaurant? What comes with the corkscrew and the serviette? Despite all my original aspirations, experience proved the most insightful testament.
The rhythms of successfully working a restaurant floor require a balancing act, having and eating cake paired with no small amount of humble pie. In one fell circumnavigation of the dining room during service I will at once greet and seat guests, triumphantly recommend them wines and eventually bus their tables. I will engage patrons about the philosophies of terroir and the burgeoning prominence of biodynamics at one moment and at the next I am interrupted midway through a (solicited, mind you) appraisal of a wine with a dismissive wave of the hand and, “yeah, yeah, whatever, that’s fine.” I’ve even conceded that wine isn’t the main attraction of the meal. In the chess match of a restaurant, the chef is always the king and the servers a composite queen. The wine guys and gals more closely resemble knights, heralded yet disposable. Like white table clothes and multiple forks, a sommelier is greasepaint on the actor of a dining room stage.
There are, however, undeniable benefits that come with the position. For one, booze is omnipresent. A deluge of corks succeed tasting wines with vendors, tasting with staff, and tasting during service. I’ve poured and tasted expensive (but reassuringly so) bottles from the esteemed chateaux on both banks of Bordeaux, Barolos of great repute and countless wines from that fickle seductress, Bourgogne. I open these bottles for the wealthy and well-slaked and I imagine savoring the entire 750mL instead of the bar spoon-sized taste/tease for me. And it’s not just wine. Our education includes a thorough understanding of, exposure to and enjoyment from spirits, cocktails, beer, sake, coffee and tea.
Another corollary benefit is the occasional respect afforded to those who dare bury their noses in books and glasses ad infinitum. Being a sommelier is a continuum of self-education and the state of never being entirely satisfied with your own knowledge, despite whatever confidence you may display at a table. Upon divulging to new acquaintances that I work in the wine trade, I take pride in answering a litany of wide-ranging questions on the topic and being a de facto arbiter of vinous appreciation. There is an aura (sometimes earned, sometimes not) surrounding the woman or man who is the prescribed expert on a subject so dynamic and vast and seemingly daunting to so many.
At the end of the day, what’s left and what matters is simply the wine itself. Beyond the trappings, good or otherwise, we are less gatekeepers than eager spectators to the history, culture, science, and the ineffable (try though we might) pleasures of fermented grape juice. I no longer see the sommelier as a leviathan of wine sage in a sea of drowning customers in perilous need of my assistance, without whom the patron’s experience would be adrift. The merry burden of the sommelier, in the spirit of humility and grace, is to communicate the intrinsic values of different wines to guests that most suits the respective cuisine. At their best, the sommelier is the restaurant’s liaison to culinary insight and a conduit to the world abroad; all for the price of a bottle. As a society fond of restaurants and service, such is an entry fee we’ve proven more than willing to pay in exchange for communing with favorable company in an ambient setting and the harmony of food with drink.
So perhaps my vision hasn’t faded, but rather come into sharper focus. I still see the polished shoes and the serviette, the grandeur of description and the risk of the pour. I really do bestride the narrow restaurant like a Colossus, the colossus of roads untraveled except through the vessel of a wine glass. The fantasy may be simply that. When there is an instant, however, a gleam in the eye of a lusty patron, a spark of revelation the moment a wine engages the senses – I restore the faith that the original vision of a job, my profession as a sommelier, is not entirely a dream deferred.