FUOR - Sommeliers Conspicuously Absent

The Death of the Sommelier
France Under One Roof may not be the vital draw for wine lovers in the on-trade, but the complete absence of sommeliers at Lord’s this last Wednesday was truly the dog that did not bark in the night. I was doing a reckonable impersonation of an octopus with St Vitus’s dance trying to pour wine for the sundry folks who clamoured to be served simultaneously at our table. (*See my assessment for the general wonderfulness of the wines on the day) so I hadn’t noticed that, behind the pillar, lurking by the next table, there was no sommelier; nor by the entrance to the door, nor skulking near the loo, nor knocking back lattes by the coffee machine. In fact these no-sommeliers were absent in heroic numbers, which, considering we had taken our gaudiest specimens (beautiful plumage!) to the tasting, was somewhat disconcerting. My definition of the modern sommelier is someone who has just received a better offer. There are some caring, knowledgeable, passionate types, but also an entire breed who never escape the confines of the restaurant dining room and become mummified inside their cellars. Nowadays, the mountain has to find a parking space and go to visit Mohammed in his or her restaurant while the generic tastings are no more than gently flexing a few wine muscles before the skeleton of the wine trade. Fortunately there were plenty of independent retailers as well as a healthy smattering of journalists and wine educators. Journalists, hélas, always look rushed, as if the knowledge that they should bestow their favours on a multitude of merchants is tearing at their guts and robbing them of all their appreciation of wine. A couple of them made tasting sound like grunt-work down to the sound of the grunts. I always try to tell people a little bit about the wine to put it into context, but when you see someone doing the mixed metaphorical equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears whilst sucking a lemon, you have to suspect that whilst a little learning may be a dangerous thing, a little ignorance is usually the tip of the iceberg!