YUMSENG.com What is a Sommelier? Definition from the 'Oxford Wine Encyclopaedia': Sommelier - widely used French term for a specialist wine waiter or wine steward. The sommelier's job is to ensure that the wine ordered is served correctly and, ideally, to advise on the individual characteristics of every wine on the establishment's wine list and on food and wine matching. In some establishments the sommelier may also be responsible for compiling the list, buying and storing the wine, and restocking whatever passes for a cellar. A sommelier should present the wine or wines ordered to the host before they are opened to ensure that there has been no misunderstanding (and so that the host can especially check that the vintages correspond to expectations). The bottle should be opened in view of the host, and, if a wine is to be decanted (and that is an option that any decent sommelier should be able to offer), that operation should be performed in public too. A sure guide to whether a particular bottle happens to be one of the relatively few to exhibit a fault (corkiness is the most common) is to examine the small tasting sample usually offered by the sommelier to the host for this very purpose. A glance will confirm that it is not cloudy, dull, or fizzing when it should not. A swift inhalation should confirm that it smells 'clean'. Few people can then resist actually tasting a mouthful, but it is generally unnecessary as the most common faults are apparent to the eye or nose. In many countries there are official associations of sommeliers, often with a series of examinations, qualifications, or at least competitions. French, and other, sommeliers compete in these events all over the world and, such is the average French person's reverence for the wine knowledge of a sommelier, to win the title Meilleur Sommelier du Monde (Best Sommelier in the World) is henceforth to inhabit another world... Home | About Us | Wine Basics | Wine Classifications | How Wine is Made| Wine Storage | Wine Service | Tasting Wine | Wine & Food
Version 3.0		An XGL Communications Production All rights reserved ® 2005	Last Update: 14th February 2005