Ready?
Sommelier — your shift
Show it, open it, check it yourself, then the host — and the person paying is served last. Do the job one step at a time. Tap the thing that should happen next.
Full screen — no distractions
What does a sommelier do?
You read a table, find the bottle that suits what they are eating and what they want to spend, and serve it in an order that has a reason behind every step.
Also called: wine waiter, wine steward, head of wine.
A day looks like
- 1You taste in the morning — what is open, what has changed, what is ready.
- 2You work out in about twenty seconds whether a table wants to be advised or left alone.
- 3You find the person who is paying something they will enjoy rather than something expensive.
- 4You take a bottle back that is faulty, without making the guest who chose it feel foolish.
Hardest part
Reading people, not wine. Most guests are slightly worried about ordering wine, and the entire skill is making the recommendation feel like their idea rather than your correction.
Best part
Putting a cheap bottle in front of somebody who expected to spend four times as much, and watching them like it more.
How you actually become a sommelier
- At schoolRestaurant floor work. Wine knowledge without service experience is not this job.
- TrainingWSET or Court of Master Sommeliers qualifications alongside years of service.
- How longTwo or three years to run a small list, a decade or more for the senior qualifications.
- Your first jobWaiter, then commis sommelier fetching and opening under somebody senior.
Frequently asked questions
- Does a sommelier just recommend expensive wine?
- A good one does the opposite. The skill is matching a bottle to the food and the budget, and sommeliers consistently say the best part of the job is finding something inexpensive that a guest genuinely prefers.
- Why do they taste it before the guest?
- To catch faults. Cork taint and oxidation are the sommelier's responsibility to spot, not the guest's, and checking first means a faulty bottle is replaced without anyone at the table having to raise it.
- Is it all about having a special nose?
- Mostly it is trained memory and a lot of tasting, not a natural gift. The part that cannot be taught easily is reading a table — knowing who wants advice, who wants to be left alone, and what they can comfortably spend.
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