Sommelier
An old myth or the last romantic profession in the modern age.
People with this unusual title and profession have been challenged, exalted, admired and criticized in recent decades, but I have never had the impression more intense than in the last few years under the onslaught of various applications that advise users in choosing wine, but also the famous artificial intelligence that creeps in, more verbally (not realistically) in all the pores of society with concern, to whom will bring prosperity and who will bring a possible change of occupation.
Already from the early Middle Ages, the nobility began to rely on a person whose most accurate job description from today's point of view would be Butler. Among other obligations, one stood out in particular, and it concerned - you guessed it - wine. Procurement, transfer, storage, and not necessarily, but also service, that is, service.
Since the end of the 18th century, with the development of the glass industry and trade networks, wine has become widely available, especially in restaurants which, again at that time, are experiencing a revolution in terms of food preparation on request and the creation of slightly more sophisticated dishes, we are reaching the moment when there is a need for that one person , i.e. Sommelier.
That's when a key turning point occurs, because in addition to the logistics itself, there is also a need for a link between the selection of wine and the end consumer, which aims to help guests choose both wine and food and contribute to the overall satisfaction of the guest. For decades, knowledge and improvement took place in informal ways, through the acquisition of transferred knowledge and personal initiative until the end of the 60s of the 20th century, when we received the first fundamental programs of organized education, very quickly after the creation of the world-recognized and sought-after.
In addition to knowledge about wines, the subject of study is also distillates, mixology, coffee, teas, cigars. In the following text, I will concentrate on wine as the primary segment of a Somali's career.
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In addition to the fine steps of wine service, manners, sales methods and understanding the needs of guests, the goal of quality training programs is to master as much theoretical knowledge as possible about grape varieties, wine regions, viticulture, processing, producers, the quality of harvests in wine regions around the world, but also blind wine testing techniques that aim to focus on wine quality parameters, learning and memorizing similarities and differences in wines, and with an emphasis on cause-and-effect relationships between those parameters.
This part is mostly abstract to a large number of people, as evidenced by the increasingly frequent mentions of situations, most commonly understood from France, Italy and the United States, where the alleged top Sommaliers were given wine from the market or tetra pak, which they described in eulogies according to a predetermined classical copy -paste to the vocabulary of wine descriptions, as critics who convey such experiences in various podcasts and interviews on the topic of wine and gastronomy would say.
In addition to the fact that the title of entry-level Somali is relatively easy to reach today, that is, a large number of people proudly point it out, even though most of them are not actually professionally engaged in that work, the smaller part of very passionate and dedicated professionals is actually fanatical about it to unimaginable details .
The almost universally accepted opinion of scientists about 10,000 aromas that the human sense of smell can smell, identify and remember is shockingly overturned by the publication of a 2014 study that proves that number goes up to an incredible 1 Trillion scents.
Now imagine true professionals who taste dozens of different wines every day, trained to pay attention to details, micro differences, intensity and ripeness of aromas, fruitiness and acid level, body, structure, intensity of taste, quality and quantity of tannins and duration of taste, and this repeatedly for years. , again and again. Let's add to that the extraordinary conditions that some of them have, to travel all regions, try 30 or 40 vintages of the same wine over the years with such an analytical approach as well as daily work with wines in top hotels and restaurants.
It really sounds incredible that even beginners, let alone highly trained Somalis, miss the wines that were the subject of this test, because that category of wine is mostly modestly aromatic, without body, structure, acidity, often quite watery and unrefined.
The greatest value of this developed skill, which is based on a methodical and analytical approach to each wine, with a focus on what is in the glass, is drawing conclusions based on your observations.
The purpose of this position is not the romantic aura of guessing wine blindly, but the use of all theoretical knowledge, experience and practical skills for the purpose of finding the best and highest quality wine ordered by the guest within the variety, style, price category and in relation to the food ordered. This is absolutely essential when it comes to what the goal is and what is expected of Sommaliers . In addition to this, an important segment is the presentation of new wines, varieties and styles of wine and inspiring consumers to explore new wines instead of literally being stucked to one label for years.
Understanding the needs of the guests and asking such questions with which they can find out what the guest would like from the wines available on the wine list.
There are also important differences between well-trained wine merchants and Sommeliers. The first and most important thing is that Sommeliers have their performance directly in front of the guest, have a personal feeling and responsibility towards the guest and strive to justify the trust shown to the person in front of them, i.e. the ultimate consumer. Very often traders and distributers have a technical approach to the wine guided by likability without wider pictures that finally lead us to the gastronomic dimension and the recognition of details in wine that can enhance certain foods and create new dimensions of taste and new experiences.
Popular wine applications often base their information base on the experiences of the users themselves, who very often provide meager information about the wine they have tried, with a questionable experience of understanding the variety itself and the style cultivated by the producer.
If we add to that the oscillations in harvests that were mostly characteristic of certain regions, today they are increasingly exposed to weather extremes, which leads us to the next challenge, which is how it is possible to feed any application with data about wines from different continents, from hundreds thousands of producers from different climates who, as a result of increasingly complicated harvests, produce wines that change the traditional style and require thorough monitoring in order to know the wines of each region as much as possible. The number of new producer countries that have appeared in recent years, both in Europe and in Asia and South America, is not negligible. It is also important to note that wine lovers often, due to lack of experience, degrade wines and styles they do not understand or come into contact with such wines too soon, which results in passing on that bad experience, according to the model, what I don't like means it is not good. This especially applies to specific wines, Barolo, Barbaresco, Pinot Noir, Sherry and generally to mature wines, aged wines.
So, after all, values such as passion, dedication, as well as sincere faith in the profession, for which the greatest compliment and recognition is the congratulations and gratitude of the guest for the wine recommendation, carry a sweet and romantic legacy of the old times when these values were the standard and not an anomaly, and when and today mostly looked at the sky and the thermometer because everything still depends on the unpredictable whims of nature that winemakers and winegrowers respect and programmers try to predict, unfortunately (un)luckily. The conclusion is good, schooled and dedicated Sommelier is an important cohesive tissue that stands between nature, winegrowers, producers on the one hand and the huge consumer market on the other, at least for some time to come.
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It was not worth time
