This post is another chapter from my new book Strong Water: Tales of a Master Sommelier’s Life in Food and Wine. One of the sections of the book is about stories from my days as a sommelier. This one has always stuck with me.
My reward for passing the Master Sommelier exam in March of 1992 was to work Sunday brunch two days later. It wasn’t punishment; it was just how the schedule worked out. I wasn’t about to pass the shift on to the other two sommeliers, who were good friends. To be honest, they would have refused to work it—and rightly so.
Several months later, on a Friday night, I had the first of many seminal sommelier moments, or reality checks, to be more precise. There I was on the floor wearing my shiny new gold and burgundy MS pin, feeling somewhere between Austin Powers and James Bond with a little Mr. Bean thrown in for gravitas. One of the first tables in the early seating was a four-top with two couples. After they had some time to settle in with the menu and wine list, I approached the table and asked the host with the list if he had any questions or needed a suggestion. He asked for a few minutes to look over the list.
When I returned to the table, he handed me the list and said, “We’ll have the such-and-such old vines, Zinfandel.” The wine in question was a seriously tannic red from a top Zinfandel producer in Sonoma County. We carried several of the winery’s single-vineyard Zinfandels and only received a scant two-case allocation of the wine in question. It always sold out quickly. Our nickname for the wine was “Death Star” because of its high tannin level that really needed a decade or more of aging to resolve. Unfortunately, our prime directive from the owner was to move inventory, so that wouldn’t happen.
“Just curious,” I asked the host, “what will you be enjoying for dinner?” He responded by saying they would start by sharing a dozen oysters on the half shell, and then two of them were having the salmon in parchment while the other two had settled on sautéed local Petrale Sole. Immediately, all the sommelier alarms in my head went off at over 100 decibels. The combination of a tannic red with oysters and delicate fish was like a train looking for a wreck. I quickly went into triage mode and tried to talk the host out of the wine in every possible way by saying things like:
“Great choice. I tasted that wine recently, and it’s a bit tight and fairly tannic. So, we might look at a delicious aromatic white to go with the salmon and Petrale instead.”
Or
“Wow, that’s a great Zinfandel. Someone last night enjoyed it with the chef’s braised short ribs. You might consider that instead of the oysters and salmon.”
Or
“A single bottle of Death Star has been known to level an entire village. I’m not sure we’re licensed for it or have the proper safety equipment to administer it.”
Just kidding about the last one. However, try as I might, I could not dissuade him from ordering the newly released vintage of Death Star. “You don’t understand,” he said, “this is our favorite wine, and it’s nearly impossible to find. We rarely get to enjoy it.” I smiled and politely said, “Of course. I’ll bring it right away and decant it for you.” Visions of ’50s sci-fi movies and electro-beams melting human skulls danced in my head as I left the table.
A few minutes later I returned with the bottle of Zinfandel and a decanter, vainly wishing the prep kitchen had a paint shaker so I might “put a little air” into the wine before serving it. Alas, it was not to be. I double-decanted the wine at the table and then poured a taste for the host. He smiled broadly and gestured for me to pour for the others at the table. Just as I finished pouring his glass, the oysters showed up, and everyone tucked in ravenously.
A few minutes later, I checked back in to see how everyone was doing, more out of morbid curiosity than anything. I fully expected someone at the table to voice a complaint about the tannin-bivalve insurgency in process, but not a word. Instead, they ordered a second bottle of Death Star and another dozen oysters. Then, they ordered a third bottle just as the salmon and Petrale hit the table.
Conventional food and wine pairing wisdom said that they should have been suffering the cruel fate of horribly mismatched food and wine chemistry. But there was nothing of the kind. In fact, the two couples were, by all appearances, having a grand time. They polished off the third bottle with dessert and coffee. Then the host palmed me $20 on the way out. He thanked me profusely, saying they hadn’t seen their friends in a couple of years, and the fact that we had their favorite wine made the evening perfect. I stood in the wake of the front door as it closed, completely stunned. Even with my newly acquired MS pin, nothing had ever prepared me for what had just happened.
The lesson I took from the “Death Star incident,” as it came to be known, was simple: always give someone permission to enjoy whatever they like to drink, regardless of how much you know—or, in this case, think you know. Otherwise, in doing what you believe is the right thing, everyone loses. And context, as in “this is my favorite wine,” trumps everything.
I’d like a Fernet Branca, please.
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