A job should never be viewed simply.

"Sommelier"

Taking the word sommelier literally, it can give people the misunderstanding that they only serve people while they taste wine. In fact, serving as a waiter when people taste wine is only a small part of the sommelier profession.

The wine is placed in front of you like dew from heaven. The alluring color and aroma seduce your taste cells, and you are worried about how to taste it most appropriately. At this time, you What you need most is a professional sommelier: he will give you the perfect pairing suggestions for food and wine. Not only is the sommelier required to be proficient in every aspect of the wine industry, including the taste, characteristics, and dishes to pair with each wine, it is also required that the sommelier has superb interpersonal communication skills.

Lu Yang once said: "A real sommelier is a successful businessman, because the best sommelier is always the one who makes the most money for his employer."

It seems that the job of a sommelier is not something that ordinary people can do.

70% of a sommelier’s job is not service

Although wine originated in the West, Chinese wine has also become popular. As a Chinese sommelier, if you meet a customer who knows more about Chinese wine than you do, you will feel ashamed.

In Chinese restaurants, there is not much communication between sommeliers and customers. They usually choose wines, and there is rarely any conversation after the selection. Even abroad, people who are generally sommeliers are very trustworthy and will not have too much contact.

Pairing Chinese food with wine is a trend nowadays. In daily life in China, more than 90% of people still prefer to eat Chinese food. If you want to sell more wine, wouldn’t it make more sense to eat Chinese food? This places higher demands on sommeliers for food and wine pairing.

Chinese food is difficult to match because there are a lot of ingredients in it, and Chinese people generally have a habit of serving various types of dishes together. Therefore, the wine recommendation work of a sommelier is very important. The wine must be able to match so many different styles of Chinese food, and it must not be obtrusive or even colorful, and it must also make customers feel your professionalism.

Service and food and wine pairing are both very important in a sommelier’s restaurant service, but sommeliers don’t just do these.

Manage wine, manage people

At the end of the day, the drinks in the store must be inventoried. This work is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Generally speaking, it is only a small inventory every day and every week, and a large inventory of drinks is carried out every month. The amount of work is huge.

The restaurant’s wine list usually changes every three months. When I first started working as a sommelier, I had little experience and it was very troublesome to find wine. I had to ask many people to find it. It often happened that a wine was difficult to find and took a long time.

Sommeliers need to purchase, store and bottle bottles in the wine cellar, and match meals and wines according to customers' preferred food and budget. They are also responsible for wine list selection, wine delivery, service, and training of other restaurant service staff.

They work with the restaurant’s culinary team to match wines that best suit the different meals and their characteristics. The sommelier may have a dispute with the executive chef or head chef over the pairing of today's meal. At this time, a professional sommelier will contact the restaurant owner directly to find the best solution.

They need to train waiters to master basic skills, such as bottle opening skills. To give a simple example, the cork is very fragile when opening an old wine. Be very careful. If there is a cork If the crumbs fall into the bottle, customers will think you are unprofessional.

Sommeliers are now receiving more and more widespread attention. Positions such as senior sommelier or sommelier director require not only the basic work content such as serving wine, but also the ability to formulate A very beautiful wine list, wine cellar management, cost control, sales analysis, you also need to be able to recommend wines to customers, clearly know what wine to sell under what circumstances, and improve wine sales for the hotel.