Service Included
Is the sommelier really extinct? A fun and innovative way to sell wine at The Hub. And, two fruit forward Italian wines for the weekend.
The New York Times wine columnist Eric Asimov recently wrote a column that was given the title ‘Twilight of the American Sommelier’. The thrust of the piece is that the staff shortages in the hospitality industry after the COVID crisis have re-organized the way American fine dining restaurants serve their customers:
“On the surface it seems that restaurants have safely emerged from the despairing depths of the Covid pandemic and the throbbing hangover that followed. Yet one key element that seemed essential in any serious restaurant before 2020 is often missing: the sommelier.”
The purpose-built sommelier, or wine director, who focused on curating a restaurant’s ‘wine program’ and giving expert wine advice to customers, it seems, has been replaced by a jack or jill of all trades server, or manager. What’s good for the American goose is generally also good for the Canadian gander, and this clicks with my experience in local fancy dining rooms in the last two years.
I think they’re more going on, though, and this is another example of a pre-existing trend, like working from home, that was not so much caused by the pandemic lockdowns but simply accelerated by it. The specialist sommelier has been made obsolete by the information age.
When I go to trade tastings I am surrounded by small ‘s’ sommeliers, by which I mean professionals who work in the ‘front of the house’ and have an expansive knowledge of wine. Many, if not most, are enrolled in one of the increasingly popular wine knowledge certification programs, like the Wine & Spirit Education Trust. If not, then they avail themselves to the expanding universe of wine media and packed calendar of wine tastings, seminars and master classes put on by the trade and marketing boards who wish them to sell their wines. They know their stuff, and are eager to know more.
It’s not that the sommelier has gone extinct, it’s just that everyone is now a sommelier.
Also, there’s an app for that. Two decades ago, when I started writing professionally about food and wine and hanging out with restaurant people, I learned that the seemingly glamorous job of ordering cases of fancy wine came with a dark underbelly called inventory. Much of the job of the capital ‘S’ Sommelier, or wine director, is figuring what has been sold, what sells well, what should be re-ordered, what is ready drink, and what isn’t but will be next year. These poor devils would peridically spend hours in what passed for a cellar in the basement of a downtown storefront counting bottles and accounting for them in a ledger. All of this can now be done on a phone.
So, the sommelier is dead, long live the sommelier! Cheers to any and all who bring us wine.
NEW WRITING AT THE HUB
This week I write about a Chianti producer, Chioccioli Altadonna, who are doing some interesting out of the box things, including making spirits and some very tasty vermouth at their ‘winestillery’, but the real story in the piece might be about William Quinteros and his boxing gym agency Bottles & Barrels, which is having fun playing with the way premium wines are sold:
WINE RECOMMENDATIONS
Please enjoy these recommendations. They are free for all subscribers for now. Soon just in time wine recommendations for LCBO Vintages releases, Ontario wine releases and wines on direct offer from importing agents will be reserved for paid subscribers to Malcolm Jolley Wino Journalist. That and more. Get ahead of the curve today and support my work by being a paid subscriber.
Lungarotti Torre di Giano Bianco di Torgiano
Price: $17.95
Channel: LCBO Vintages
Producer: Lungarotti
Country: Italy
Region: Umbria
Appellation: Bianco di Torgiano DOC
Grapes: Vermentino, Grechetto, Trebbiano
Alcohol by Volume: 12%
Sugar Content: 2 grams per litre
This white wine from under the radar Umbria is a lean mean mineral machine made from an unusual trio of Central Italian grapes. But then again, Lungarotti can pretty much do as it pleases with its Bianco di Torgiano DOC wines because it’s a near monopole. Lungarotti is not quite the only producer producer in the tiny 200 acre denominazione di origine controllata just south of Perugia, but they dominate the denomination. (I wrote more about Lungarotti a couple years ago at The Hub here.)
The Torgiano is an excellent example of what the Italians can do with an under $20 white wine. It’s super crisp and food friendly sipper, with lemon, lime and grapefruit notes that wake up the palate. It’s an aperitvo to be served with little snacks before dinner, or while making it, on a weekend night. It’s not complicated because it’s not supposed to be and sometimes it’s nice to enjoy a simple pleasure.
https://www.lcbo.com/en/lungarotti-torre-di-giano-bianco-di-torgiano-2018-268110
Il Molino di Grace Chianti Classico 2019
Price: $24.95
Channel: LCBO Vintages
Producer: Il Molino di Grace
Country: Italy
Region: Tuscany
Appellation: Chianti Classico DOCG
Grapes: Sangiovese
Alcohol by Volume: 13%
Sugar Content: 2 grams per litre
I am fan of the Il Molino di Grace winery, which co-incidentally is also represented by the Bottles & Barrels agency I wrote about at The Hub this week. Until a couple of years ago, I pronounced the last word in their name “grahchay” as though I was reciting the stanzas of Dante. Then I met Daniel Grace, who in the accent of someone born and raised in California, assured me it was fine to pronounce it to rhyme with ‘face’ while mine turned red.
In any event, kudos to the Grace family for offering a top level Chianti Classico for under $30. $25 isn’t cheap, but this organic wine is a bargain, especially from this ‘good year’. Beyond dark cherry are notes of blackberry and black currant held together in Tuscan earthiness and silky tannins. It wants red meat or mushrooms, or both. It’s a dinner wine that will keep you at the table.
https://www.lcbo.com/en/il-molino-di-grace-chianti-classico-2015-85209