Spirits How to Deal with Your Sommelier

Sommeliers are something like people. They come in a broad range of types and temperaments within the basic shell of authoritarian presence. A sommelier is a wine steward (originally a wine butler). A sommelier can be charming, accommodating, boorish, affable, intimidating, helpful, frightful, friendly or finky. He can be pushy and haughty if you let him, and since so many customers in the past have let him, he may try to do the same to you.

In Dallas at the moment, there is a resident cast of wine pushers that reflects the curious range of showmanship, concern and dedication to the wine that is peculiar to the species. From the standpoints of personality and performance, the principal som-meliers in Dallas establishments are as different as Bordeaux and Lieb-fraumilch. Where one is charming and a flamboyant showman, another is a morose patrician. Yet another accompanies his recommendations with a recitation of appropriate anecdotes and observations. One is a woman, who brings a sort of maternal zest to the job. They are all different but they fill their roles well, in their ways.

One of the objects of this month’s skoal practice is to arm you with a game plan for your next encounter with a sommelier.

In many restaurants, the head-waiter makes wine suggestions. But in the more densely staffed places, there is a sommelier. You will recognize him by the silver or gold chain he wears around his neck. It has a basis in tradition, since the ancient sommeliers, being in charge of the baronial wine-cellar, needed something to carry the key to the cellar.

A sommelier’s standard-issue equipment includes a small silver sampling cup, called the tastevin. It has become showy and unnecessary since restaurant sommeliers have neither the time, the need, nor the liver to sample every bottle of wine sold in the place.

An additional point about the trappings of the wine steward: as more cheaper and worse restaurants add the status of sommeliers to their staffs -they are converting dishwashers and busboys to the job and outfitting them with aluminum or cardboard chains -the great French restaurants have gone full-circle and have dispensed with the tradition of the chain, the key and the tastevin. The sommelier is now identified by an embroidered cluster of grapes on his jacket lapel.

The populace of Paris annually drinks more wine than the entire U.S. The U.S. probably could come closer if so many diners weren’t scared away from ordering wine, either by their unfamiliarity with wines or by the downright intimidating manner of some wine stewards. Don’t be put off. The wine steward is there to serve you, and you should depend on his recommendations.

By all means feel at ease, and feel entitled to ask him, “What would you recommend?” Probably he will recommend the most expensive wine, if not the best!

If you’re not in a position to buy the most expensive wine, and you don’t know what is almost as good but less expensive, ask to see the wine list (don’t let him hold it). Nearly all wine lists carry the selections in category groupings. Cheaper but similar wines will be listed with the expensive ones.

Suppose the wine steward points to a Bordeaux that sells for $20. There will be another Bordeaux, probably, listed near for, say, $9. Your line would be something like: “What do you think of this?”

The sommelier can’t really put that one down, can he, since his cellar stocks it? But the odds are he may say something like: “It is a marvelous wine, but perhaps this vintage is not quite up to par as yet.”

In the case of such a check-padding gambit, a perfect counter-move on your part would be to select another wine -at your price choice -in that same category and say, “Well, just give me the so and so which you recommended two weeks ago. It was great, too.”

Checkmate.

Most of the sommeliers after several of your visits will remember you and never again try to oversell.

When your wine is brought to the table, a good sommelier will give you more than a few drops for your initial tasting approval. It is your place to taste the wine for your date and other dinner guests, but be sure he gives you enough of a sample -at least an ounce -so that you can taste it. (See “Spirits,” March.)

He will also give you the cork to prove its soundness. By all means make the show of rolling it in your fingers, examining it intently and smelling it deeply. But please, please don’t ruin the spectacle by smelling the wrong end of the cork!

And don’t be timid about refusing a bottle that is spoiled or overaged. Generally, there are three reasons for which you can refuse a bottle of wine: if it has a vinegary smell and taste; if the wine looks muddy; or if it smells and tastes of cork. If the sommelier doesn’t agree to take back the bottle, you are perfectly within your rights to call the manager. But by all means be sure you have a good case.

No matter how formidably dressed or elegantly spoken the sommelier is, he is there solely to serve you and to help you enjoy your wine with your dinner. He should be tipped 15 percent of the wine or bar tab, but never less than a dollar. Please make sure he personally gets it. Tips have a way of disappearing between different echelons of restaurant crew.

Remember these points -most of all, not to be intimidated-and next time you wine-and-dine out, you’ll get your just desserts. And aperitifs, and all the wine in between.