Me doing my Sommelier thing.
“I have to apologize to you.”
A concerned-looking woman comes up to the bar on a busy Friday night. I reckon she’s probably knocked over a glass, which is a shame as I was just about to sneak around the corner for a quick Negroni. It’ll have to wait.
“I just realized I was wearing this exact outfit when I visited last week. What must you think of me?”
I admit I did a full, almost comically slow body scan. There was a blank expression on my face; I had no recollection of this woman, not a sausage. I had probably served over 500 people in my bar and store that week. And I just couldn’t pick this woman out of that line-up.
Somms, have a bad reputation. We’re thought of as snobby and pretentious, judging everyone who dares to step across our threshold.
But here’s the scoop. When it’s a busy Friday night, unless you’re shaped like a wine bottle and your insides taste like fruit, I don’t have the time to look too closely at you or your allegedly sloppy outfit choices.
And therein lies your superpower. If no one is watching, you can forget about impressing with your wine knowledge or feeling awkward for being in a wine bar in the first place. It means you can get on with the most important task of all; having a great night out.
We’re just geeks high on a legal drug
The wine industry attracts a funny kind of crowd. People with big brains and an even bigger thirst. When we get together, we geek out. We talk relentlessly about wine, about its provenance, who made it, how it was made.
But we know that we’re the odd ones out. We’re the ones who have dedicated our lives to fermented grapes, not our clients.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way people have come to believe they need to understand the intricacies of wine in order to enjoy it. And, some of my clients, especially newbies, used to worry that if they were clueless, they’d be ridiculed and ripped off.
Yeah, I wasn’t in the market of ridiculing people who had made the effort to visit my store.
It’s not like musicians expect their fans to know how to play like them; they just want to entertain them.
The same goes for wine.
As a Somm, you learn to read the customer. Give me 2 minutes with you and nine times out of ten I can pick out a bottle within your budget that suits your taste. Even if you can’t describe a wine to save your life, it doesn’t matter. A customer once described what they like in wine with basic actions, facial expressions, and guttural sounds. It was a fun minute for all involved.
It was my job to take out-there descriptions and translate them to what I had on my shelf.
You don’t need to know anything, but I do.
So chill dude, no one cares if you don’t know the difference between a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand and one from the Loire Valley. But if you want to know, I’d be happy to teach you.
Dare to peek inside my brain? (It’s less interesting than you think)
- Only 3 hours until I can go home.
- What am I going to make for dinner tomorrow?
- Did we re-fill the fridge after that group drank all our Prosecco?
- Has table 3’s bill gone out yet?
- I wonder how many Martinis I can drink whilst I’m clearing up.
- I’ll make the cheese board! One piece for you, one piece for me.
- I must remember to add more Shiraz to my order next week.
Boring, huh.
Sometimes the job is pepped up with someone ordering a fancy bottle or overhearing a juicy piece of local gossip. I once overheard a customer admit to his wife he was sleeping with her sister.
The rest of the time on the floor is spent serving, cleaning, re-stocking, and idle chats between staff about who is the best Iglesias, Julio or Enrique (Enrique, of course).
We are there to ensure you all have a good time when you step over our threshold, but you can rest assured my brain is more filled with tomorrow’s stock take than your ‘sub-par’ wine choice. In fact, I wrote that wine list you’ve just chosen from. There are no bad wine choices in there, thank you very much.
The Somm (Sommelier) stereotype is alive and kicking
Last year, I sold my wine bar and store and hung up my trendy denim apron for good. I am a customer again and boy has it been an eye-opener.
So far, no Sommelier or wine store clerk has been snobby or ripped me off (I’d like to see them try). But it turns out those misconceptions we all have of the wine industry run deep. So deep, they can trip up someone nearly 10 years in the trade.
Earlier this summer, I spent 10 days in Zadar, Croatia which is home to a fantastic wine shop. I visited nearly every day, picking up wine for our evening meal.
After a few days, I started to worry about what the assistant thought of me. Do they judge me for drinking too much? Do I spend too much? Too little? I started to drop hints about my wine knowledge with the hope of impressing them (and making an ass of myself at the same time).
“You sound like one of our customers.” My husband was sat there later that night, a glass of Croatian Syrah in his hand and a disapproving look on his face as I recounted how I felt in the store.
He was right. We heard it all the time.
The stark reality is, if you bought wine in my store or bar, you paid for my, well, everything. There was no judgment, there was just gratitude that you picked my store over the supermarket 5 doors down.
I never cared how much customers drank unless they were falling into the alcoholic territory, at which point I’d be more concerned than anything else. No one could ever spend too little because I had chosen those sub-$15 wines for a reason. And spending too much? Well, that concept just doesn’t exist.
I have spent a good chunk of my life excessively worrying about what other people think of me.
Working in wine taught me that I don’t need to do that. People have their own shit going on so unless you manage to punch your way through their bubble, you might not even hit their radar.
So, relax, man, and remember why you ventured out of the house in the first place — to enjoy yourself whilst mildly toasted on great wine. And I’ll get on with making that happen.
