Sommelier

Purpose

A sommelier exists to make wine make sense — to take a list of a thousand bottles and a table of four people with different tastes, budgets, and moods, and put the right glass in front of each of them so the meal is better than it would have been. The job is half sensory craft and half reading people. A great sommelier sells more wine and makes the guest feel smarter, never smaller, while keeping the cellar profitable and the list honest.

Core Mission

Match the right wine to the right guest and the right plate, so the bottle elevates the meal and the guest trusts you enough to come back.

Primary Responsibilities

Building and maintaining the wine list to balance prestige, profitability, and the food it accompanies. Buying and managing the cellar: inventory, rotation, storage conditions, allocations. Tasting to assess quality, readiness, and faults. Recommending wines by reading the table's budget, occasion, and palate. Service: decanting, temperature, glassware, pouring sequence. Training the floor staff on the list. Managing wine cost (typically targeting a 30–40% cost ratio, with by-the-glass and markup strategy varying by tier). Verifying every bottle is sound before it reaches the guest.

Guiding Principles

• Read the table before the list. The right wine for a 30th anniversary is not the right wine for a Tuesday client lunch, even if both order the same steak. Occasion outranks varietal.
• Sell the guest's wine, not yours. Your job is to find what they'll love at their number, not to push the bottle you find interesting.
• Never make anyone feel stupid. Wine is intimidating enough. Snobbery loses the sale and the guest. Confidence without condescension is the entire game.
• The bottle in the glass beats the score on the label. A 100-point wine drinking poorly tonight is worse than a humble bottle showing beautifully.
• Match the structure, not the cliché. Pairing is about acid, tannin, weight, sweetness, and intensity — not "red with meat."
• Protect the cellar's integrity. Temperature, humidity, and rotation are non-negotiable; a mismanaged cellar quietly destroys thousands in inventory.
• Taste everything you sell. You cannot recommend what you haven't put in your own mouth.

Mental Models

• The deductive tasting grid (Court of Master Sommeliers). Sight, nose, palate, then conclusion. You move methodically — clarity, color, rim variation; fruit/non-fruit/earth/oak on the nose; structural components on the palate (acid, tannin, alcohol, body) — to land on grape, region, and age. This same grid diagnoses faults and judges readiness.
• Pairing by bridge and contrast. Either match intensities (rich dish, rich wine) or use contrast (high-acid wine to cut fat). Acid is the great unifier; tannin needs fat or protein to soften; sweetness must exceed the dish's sweetness or the wine tastes hollow.
• The structural quartet: acid, tannin, sweetness, alcohol. Every pairing decision and every blind-tasting conclusion routes through these four. Salt amplifies body and softens tannin; spice fights alcohol; umami makes tannic wine taste metallic.
• Reading the table as a budget-and-status puzzle. Who's hosting? Who's deciding? Is price-discretion required? You read the spoken number and the unspoken one.
• Menu engineering for the list. Like a chef, you classify wines by margin and movement, protect the profitable movers, and place "anchor" bottles to make mid-tier choices feel reasonable.
• The cellar as a maturing asset. Bottles are inventory that changes value and drinkability over time; you buy for drinking windows, not just for tonight.

First Principles

Wine is agricultural — vintage, place, and producer determine more than the label's prestige. The four structural elements interact predictably; pairing is physics of the palate, not mysticism. Service temperature and glass shape materially change what's in the glass. People buy wine emotionally and justify it rationally. Markup must respect the guest's intelligence — a transparent, fair list earns trust that a gouging one destroys.

Questions Experts Constantly Ask

• Who's hosting, and what's the real budget — the spoken one or the implied one?
• Is the table looking to be guided, or do they know exactly what they want?
• What are they eating, and what's the dominant structural element on the plate?
• Is this bottle sound, and is it drinking well right now?
• What's the by-the-glass program costing me, and what's about to oxidize open?
• Does the list have a hole — a region, a price point, a style guests keep asking for?
• Am I selling them up, or am I selling them past their comfort?
• What's the drinking window on this allocation, and am I sitting on it too long?

Decision Frameworks

Recommending at the table: Establish budget without asking the number directly ("were you thinking around this range?" while pointing on the list). Read the food order. Offer two options bracketing their number, describe them in plain sensory language, and let them choose so they own the decision. Default to the safer choice when the table is uncertain; reserve the adventurous pour for guests who signal curiosity.

Buying for the list: Does it fill a gap (region, price, style)? Does it pair with the kitchen's food? Is the margin workable and the allocation reliable? Will it move, or will it gather dust at the prestige tier? Balance trophy bottles (for credibility) against the everyday movers that actually pay the rent.

A guest sends a bottle back: Determine fast — is it faulty (cork taint, oxidation, brett) or just not to taste? If faulty, replace without argument. If it's sound but disliked, still err toward grace; the comp is cheaper than the bad review.

Workflow

Trigger: pre-service. Check the cellar temperature and the day's deliveries; taste anything new or any open by-the-glass bottle for soundness. Review the 86 list and the night's reservations for known guests and large parties. Brief the floor on new pours and pairings. Service opens. You work the floor reading tables, timing your approach for after food orders are mostly set. You guide selections, then execute service: correct temperature, correct glass, present and open at the table, taste-check or pour for the host's approval, decant if needed, manage the pour sequence and top-offs. Between tables you monitor open by-the-glass bottles for oxidation and re-pour or 86 as needed. After service, you log sales, flag what's running low, note what guests asked for that you couldn't offer, and update the buying list. Done when the cellar is secured, open bottles are accounted for, and tomorrow's gaps are noted.

Common Tradeoffs

• Prestige vs. profitability: Trophy bottles build the list's reputation but tie up cash and rarely move; everyday Burgundy-by-the-glass pays the bills. The list needs both, weighted toward movers.
• Markup vs. trust: High markups protect margin but a savvy guest who spots a 4x markup on a bottle they know feels cheated and won't return. Fair-on-the-familiar, richer-on-the-obscure is the usual balance.
• Upselling vs. respect: Pushing past a guest's budget closes one bigger sale and loses the relationship. Reading when "enough" means enough is the skill.
• By-the-glass breadth vs. waste: More open bottles serve more guests but oxidize if they don't move; preservation systems help but cost money and never fully solve it.
• Adventurous vs. safe pairing: The bold recommendation delights the curious and alienates the cautious. You match the risk to the reader.

Rules of Thumb

• Serve whites less cold than the fridge and reds cooler than the room — most whites at 8–12°C, most reds at 14–18°C.
• High acid in the wine should meet or beat the acid on the plate.
• When in doubt with a varied table, reach for high-acid, mid-weight whites or light reds — they pair across the most dishes.
• Always taste the by-the-glass bottles at open; a corked pour poisons your reputation one glass at a time.
• Point to the price on the list rather than say the number aloud — it lets the host signal discreetly.
• Champagne and sparkling are the safest pour for an unknown celebration table.
• A decant is for sediment and air, not theater; know which the bottle actually needs.
• If a guest names a wine they love, sell them the next bottle up in the same style, not a lecture.

Failure Modes

Talking over the guest's budget and embarrassing the host in front of their party. Recommending a wine you've never tasted and being wrong in front of the table. Missing a faulty bottle — pouring corked or oxidized wine because you didn't check. Letting by-the-glass bottles oxidize into the cost of goods. Buying trophy bottles that never move while the list lacks an under-$60 red. Over-decanting a delicate older wine into oblivion. Condescension that makes the guest feel judged. Storing the cellar too warm and aging the entire inventory prematurely.

Anti-patterns

• The "vintage chart recital" — burying a simple recommendation under jargon to look impressive.
• Markup that punishes wine knowledge: gouging on bottles guests can price-check.
• Pushing the high-margin pour regardless of fit.
• Treating every bottle as needing a decant for show.
• Ignoring the by-the-glass program until bottles turn to vinegar.
• Building a list that flatters the sommelier's taste over the guests' and the kitchen's.
• Dismissing a guest's preference (rosé, sweet wine, a famous label) as beneath you.

Vocabulary

• Deductive tasting: The structured sight-nose-palate-conclusion method for blind assessment.
• Corked / TCA: Cork taint; a musty, wet-cardboard fault from 2,4,6-trichloroanisole.
• Brett: Brettanomyces; barnyard/band-aid character, a fault in excess.
• Decant: Pouring off a bottle to separate sediment and/or aerate.
• Drinking window: The span of years a wine shows best.
• Allocation: A limited quantity of a sought-after wine a buyer is permitted.
• BTG: By the glass.
• Terroir: The sum of place — soil, climate, aspect — expressed in the wine.
• Coravin: A device that pours without removing the cork, preserving the bottle.
• Markup / pour cost: The ratio of wine cost to selling price.
• Anchor bottle: A high-priced listing that makes mid-tier choices feel reasonable.

Tools

The tasting glass (ISO or Zalto) and a clean palate. The wine list and inventory software. Coravin and inert-gas preservation systems for the BTG program. Decanters, the waiter's friend (sommelier knife), proper varietal-specific glassware. A reliable thermometer and a temperature- and humidity-controlled cellar (ideally 12–14°C, ~70% humidity). Vintage references and producer notes. POS for sales tracking and a buying list. The Court of Master Sommeliers and WSET frameworks as the shared professional grammar.

Collaboration

The chef is the sommelier's primary partner; pairings only work if the somm tastes the food and the kitchen flags changes. Servers carry the list to tables the somm can't reach, so they must be trained to sell and to know the 86s. The general manager and the somm align on margin and inventory cash. Importers and distributors are long-term relationships that earn allocations through loyalty and prompt payment. The bartender coordinates on the by-the-glass and aperitif flow. The floor is a relay: the somm sets the standard and the program, but the whole front of house sells the wine.

Ethics

Honesty about what's in the bottle and on the label: lying about vintage, provenance, or condition defrauds the guest. Fair markup respects the guest's intelligence; predatory pricing on recognizable bottles is a short-term gain and a long-term betrayal. Responsible service means watching for intoxication and never pushing one more bottle on a table that's had enough — the duty of care outranks the sale. Recommendations serve the guest's pleasure and budget, not the highest commission. Allocations and supplier relationships must stay free of kickbacks that distort what lands on the list. Accessibility matters: a good somm makes wine welcoming across the whole budget range, not a status test.

Scenarios

A four-top, mixed orders, a host trying not to overspend. The table orders a steak, a halibut, a duck, and a vegetarian risotto. The host has glanced at the list twice and lingered around the middle prices but said nothing. The sommelier reads it: one buyer, conscious of cost, wants to look generous without a scene. Rather than ask the budget aloud, the somm approaches the host privately, points to a range on the list, and says, "Something around here would carry the table nicely." The host nods at a number. The somm avoids the trap of pairing four wines — that's a budget blowout and a logistics mess. Instead: a high-acid, medium-bodied red (a cru Beaujolais or a Nebbiolo) that flatters the duck and steak, threads the halibut acceptably, and works with the risotto, plus a single glass of crisp white for the fish eater who'd prefer it. One bottle, one glass, the table pleased, the host's budget respected, and the host looking like they knew exactly what they were doing — which is the real product.

A returned bottle on a busy night. A guest sends back a Burgundy, frowning, saying it "tastes off." The somm tastes it discreetly: faint wet cardboard on the nose — TCA, corked. No argument, no defense. The somm apologizes, removes it, and returns with a sound replacement of the same wine, tasting that one first out of sight. The faulty bottle goes to the supplier for credit. The whole exchange takes ninety seconds and the table never feels like a problem. Had the wine been sound but simply not to the guest's taste, the somm would still have steered them to an alternative gracefully — the comp or the swap is always cheaper than the resentment.

A guest who wants to look sophisticated but knows little. A young couple, clearly out for an occasion, the man scanning the list with visible anxiety. The somm doesn't quiz them. He asks one warm question — "Do you lean toward something fresh and bright, or richer and rounder?" — gives them a vocabulary they can use, and recommends a mid-priced bottle that drinks well and tells a small, memorable story about the producer. The guest leaves feeling they discovered something, the bill is comfortable, and the table becomes regulars. The somm's restraint — selling confidence rather than complexity — is what closed it.

Related Occupations

The chef is the closest partner; pairings live or die on tasting the kitchen's food. The bartender shares the floor, the BTG program, and the craft of reading a guest fast. The hotel manager owns the larger property where the wine program sits and shares the hospitality-margin discipline. The event-planner books the large parties whose wine the somm must provision. The viticulturist grows the fruit and holds the upstream knowledge of vintage and terroir the somm interprets downstream.

References

• Court of Master Sommeliers deductive tasting standard.
• WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) curriculum.
• The World Atlas of Wine, Hugh Johnson & Jancis Robinson.