The Rise of the American Somm

[Roy Hersh]

http://punchdrink.com/articles/the-rise ... ican-somm/

[Tom D.]

I guess I have to admit I don't get the whole buzz about sommeliers right now. Yes, a small number are super-knowledgeable, and their academic achievements, tasting prowess, and far-flung activities are kind of interesting in a geekish sort of way. But another class of elites is one thing the wine world does not need.

[Andy Velebil]

I guess I have to admit I don't get the whole buzz about sommeliers right now. Yes, a small number are super-knowledgeable, and their academic achievements, tasting prowess, and far-flung activities are kind of interesting in a geekish sort of way. But another class of elites is one thing the wine world does not need.

Here's my favorite thing to do to Somm's. Start talking about Portuguese wines/Ports and watch how fast the blank look arrives on their face and how quickly they make a hasty exit.

I too don't get all the buzz about them. Almost all are generalists in that they know just enough about certain regions to be dangerous but don't rise to the level of expert in anything IMO. Of course, there is always exceptions, but I am talking about the majority.

That said, they can be helpful for those who know nothing about wine. But for the majority of semi-knowledgeable wine drinkers they aren't needed.

Now my other pet peeve is an establishment can pay all sorts of money to have a Somm, yet they can't even stock the right type of stemware for the wines they sell.

[David Spriggs]

Restaurant wine salesman. 'Nuf said.

[Moses Botbol]

Restaurant wine salesman. 'Nuf said.

Exactly. They are funny; go to a steakhouse and they'll recommend any wine on the list, as if anything pairs with steak... Not that I disagree, but they like to make out like each cut has its own ideal wine and that's it (until they see you are cold on their recommendation).

[Bradley Bogdan]

I agree many don't have enough specialist knowledge to help us nerdier wine folk, short of understanding how to decant properly (always an adventure when I take VP to a restaurant). I have been to a few places though where the wine list is simply too big to read, and you need someone who knows it thoroughly if you're looking for something special that's not obvious. I've never been to such a place where the somm hasn't been able to direct me to something I likely wouldn't have found on my own in the 3-5 minutes or so my parter can put up with me reading the wine list.

[Roy Hersh]

I admit that I am a wine list reading junkie. Having designed many of them over the years, I like to check out the formats and design elements as much as I do the wines and pricing on them.

Somms do have their place in some types of restaurants, but I find it a bit over-the-top in some eateries that come off as really pretentious by having a somm on the floor even at lunch.

Plenty do not get a fixed salary and work off the % of total wine sales of the restaurant. There are other restaurants that pay the cost of the Somm through tips from the bar and wait staff, but that modus is shrinking. Of course some Somms are paid straight salaries too but that is usually when they possess loftier titles like "wine directors" and others still, work on straight commission during their wine shifts and get a salary for working additional "managment" shifts.

I've met some Somms that are worth their weight in gold and do a great job by encouraging the majority of customers who have little to no wine knowledge but enjoy wine and food nonetheless. When they are not caught up by their WSET/MS/MW titles, they can be great and humble sales people and then are a huge asset to the restaurant. David is not wrong. However, a good Somm can certainly be extremely knowledgable in areas of wine or AVA/DO/DOC regions or specific grapes etc. I have rarely met a Somm that doesn't have a specific area of expertise like Claret, or Barolo or German Riesling (to name just a few) and then go work in a restaurant that specializes in that kind of food and the wine list bends towards their will over time.

[Andy Velebil]

I admit that I am a wine list reading junkie.

Same here

[Moses Botbol]

I admit that I am a wine list reading junkie.

Same here

One more

[Andy Velebil]

Does being a wine-list reading junkie bother your other guests? I always get made fun of when the wine list appears. All my friends know to just hand it to me and go about their business for the next few minutes. Then I get the "What did you find?" question.

[Moses Botbol]

Does being a wine-list reading junkie bother your other guests? I always get made fun of when the wine list appears. All my friends know to just hand it to me and go about their business for the next few minutes. Then I get the "What did you find?" question.

Not usually. They know I am looking out for their interests (taste and pocketbook).

[Bradley Bogdan]

Does being a wine-list reading junkie bother your other guests? I always get made fun of when the wine list appears. All my friends know to just hand it to me and go about their business for the next few minutes. Then I get the "What did you find?" question.

Not usually. They know I am looking out for their interests (taste and pocketbook).

My friends are the same way, it's just the significant other that will start tapping her foot if she feels it's infringing on date night haha.

[Andy Velebil]

... it's just the significant other that will start tapping her foot if she feels it's infringing on date night haha.

Yeah, that's not good.

[Miguel Simoes]

:) I always peruse it but never take all that long. Few restaurants carry that much Portuguese wine, be it table wine or Port.

I have a tough enough time knowing my way around all things Portuguese wine. When it comes to other regions/grape varieties I know v little and generally defer to the waiter/somm.

[Roy Hersh]

A very interesting bunch of questions and answers by some top NY Somms. A couple of these are good friends, so I won't comment on any of their disclosures here, but this is a worthy read for those interested in Somm topic:

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2013/12/wi ... part_2.php

[Moses Botbol]

A very interesting bunch of questions and answers by some top NY Somms. A couple of these are good friends, so I won't comment on any of their disclosures here, but this is a worthy read for those interested in Somm topic:

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2013/12/wi ... part_2.php

There's nothing earth shattering in this article. Most are wanting or into the same things I am... At least for what I have been buying (outside of port) for last few years. Been stocking up Jura, Loire, traditional Spanish and Italian wines (along with old CA cabs) before they are all dried up or out of my price range. Grower Champagne's have been big for like a decade. Just about all the regions or previously mentioned regions are already making "natural" wines. As one Somm mentioned, I would like to see wines from regions like China. I haven't seen an Indian or Chinese wine on a menu locally yet.

I'd like to see restaurants put more of an effort to have aged wines on their list. How can a restaurant take themselves seriously as having a special wine list when everything on there is from like 2010+? I could just go to Costco or BJ's and have the same wine list; big deal...

[Brian C.]

I'm a huge wine list junkie, too. Figuring out which wines are offered at a good value is a good challenge, too. I think a lot of lists fail to be interesting. Sometimes they will have a ton of pedestrian offerings with really inflated markups. Sometimes they mistakenly equate interesting with offering a ton of trophies for people looking to impress, also. Give me a new varietal, a new region, whatever. And yes, as Moses just said, get some older vintages. There seems to be this mentality where people view wines like they view cars, which works for me sometimes, as just like at a dealership, the wine shop sometimes has to blow out the previous vintage to make room for the new one.

It is fun looking at a list ahead of time and figuring out what to get when I go later. Sometimes these lists require research. My wife went to DC for a conference awhile back and her group went to an upscale Greek restaurant with a mostly Greek list. Given I know very little about Greek wine, it was a most interesting exercise. Thankfully I didn't pick any duds. I lost my texts on this, but looking at the site http://www.zaytinya.com/images/uploads/ ... _nov13.pdf I seem to remember I picked a red with the Mavrodaphne grape, and a late harvest Malagousia for dessert.

[Roy Hersh]

One of my first articles published in a magazine (and not online) was on sharing my experience of creating financially sound wine lists that were compelling for consumers in Sommelier Journal Magazine some years ago when that magazine first got started. In fact, I think that article was in their very first issue. Anyway, here is another take by a Somm offering advice:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A ... c_ixaw&s=1

[Andy Velebil]

Watched Somm last night. It's about a group of people preparing to take, and then taking, the Master Somm test. While insightful for about 15-20 minutes, it became nothing but a rehash of the same thing over and over. And really nothing more than what most of us probably did in college...study a lot and drink a lot.

The one part I found odd, and to me was flat out wrong on an ethical part, was one guy who later passed was hired the same day by Krug to be their USA Ambassador. While kudos to him, WTF is the point of getting a MS if you aren't going to work in a restaurant type setting? Seems like some of these guys are doing nothing more than getting the MS with the sole purpose of getting some nice corporate job instead of what the MS degree was originally designed for.

Though I do love the part where, during a practice test, they are served a Berhinger Chardonnay and none of them come close to getting it right. Just goes to show you that you can trick anyone into thinking they are drinking something from a different region quite easily. I would love to toss in a Charme, Batuta, or older Redoma Reserva Branco and see what their guesses would be. Or better yet, give them a 1952 Dalva and see what they think it is.

[Bradley Bogdan]

I do appreciate the amount of work it takes to develop a palate that can blind taste well across the world, but I also often wonder what's the point of having it be a large component to any exams.

First, even the best blind tasters can only accurately taste a small sample of wines from a relatively small number of places. While those places may have been all that really mattered 40 years ago, the amount of good wine coming from other places is staggering. Heck, just yesterday I had a legitimately good (88-90 point range) Pinot from NJ, of all places. This is only compounded by the issue of many regions have a full range of styles and skill levels, especially within more challenging vintages. For just about every wine on earth, I suspect you could find a doppelgänger from a different region in a different year, perhaps even from a different grape.

Second, I suspect that with the crazy low pass rate, many of the folks that pass the blind tasting portion are no more skilled than many of their colleagues, they just happened to land either the correct set of wines or get lucky with their inferences. It reminds me a bit of the engineering exams in undergrad. They were often so hard that the median would be in the neighborhood of 15%-20% correct. Any time you have an exam that tough it compresses the skilled folks into a tight bell and the folks that become the high outliers are often due as much to luck as they are to being more familiar with the material, as an extra question (or wine) or two has a huge effect. I'm not trying to imply that they haven't developed a staggeringly skilled palate or that it's not possible to, but given the miriad of variables in how a wine shows and how you are able to evaluate it, to nail or come close on a full lineup of wines will take all of your skill, and then even for the best, some luck on top of that, which seems a bit silly/unfair.

Finally, as cool as it can be, I don't understand the importance of blind tasting in a practical sense. The service and knowledge components are easy to justify, both test areas of expertise you will have to draw on time and time again in a restaurant setting, but blind tasting? Maybe if you're overseeing that storage facility that got flooded out and need to blind taste the bottles to figure out what they are, that could be a practical skill, but I can't come up with another instance. I would hope it's just a misguided effort to test a particularly discerning palate, but couldn't there be a more objective way to test that, and honestly, shouldn't that be the least important skill, behind service and knowledge, when it comes to being a somm?

I don't wish to seem like I'm not in favor of the whole MS system, because I am. It's important to have levels of attainment in any field, and some of my old classmates have used the system to learn a ton and advance in career and knowledge. I just think the focus on blind tasting gets a bit silly.