COMMENT: The last rites of the Sommelier?

By Patrick Skinner

 

On a very warm evening last week, out to a local restaurant, I ordered a bottle of Kolios “Cornetto” Rosé, which the manager brought nicely chilled, uncorked and poured me a taster. “This wine is not good”, I said, “It is corked – oxidised”. He smelt the wine, and replied, “No, it is not, you do not know this wine, this is how it is, I sell a lot of it”. With temper rising I informed the gentleman that I had known the wine and the winemaker since it was first made, and that this bottle was bad. He stormed away and brought back the wine list. “Choose another one”, he said. “Please bring me another bottle of Cornetto”, I asked.

“You want another the same?”

“It will not be the same”, I said (praying that it wouldn’t be corked, too).

The wine in the second bottle was good, fresh rounded and fruity, crisply dry on the tongue. I made the man smell and taste both. I think he understood, because after that he was very charming. But, OH FOR SCREW CAPS! The sooner they arrive in Cyprus for all wines which are to be drunk young, the better.

But when they come, what will some of our Sommeliers do? You can’t sniff a plastic cork or a screw cap? The same question amuses and concerns the UK’s SPECTATOR Magazine’s brilliant and funny restaurant critic, Deborah Ross, who, in a recent review of a Far Eastern restaurant first of all summarised the menu…

There is sushi and tandoori and sashimi and robata and dim sum and curry and noodles and wok dishes. No wonder the mother wants to weep. Finally, though, the mother and the father and the son sift through the 150 dishes and order: octopus nigri; prawn and asparagus spring rolls; soft-shell crab tempura; chicken kali mirch; black pepper sizzling beef; salt and pepper calamari; Japanese garlic rice  (See Note below)

… and then described the wine…

A good bottle of Wilunga Shiraz, which the waiter opens with a great deal of ceremony and which the mother finds amusing, as the bottle has a screw top. Still, what is a wine waiter to do in this new age of the screw top?

Personally, I cannot stand pomp, pretentiousness and above all, being patronized. When I was much younger on holiday in France I took my family to a Michelin Two Star restaurant, where everything hit the right note, except for the Sommelier. For a quite ordinary and youthful Burgundy he brought his table, candle, decanter and his own tasting glass. In the latter he poured a large swig of the wine, swirled it, looked and sniffed at it, concluding with a mighty slurp of all the wine in the glass, which he swallowed. Only then did he consent to pour a glass for me. I was furious, and I have never let such a thing happen to me again.

So, if the screw-cap dispenses with this archaic and snobbish custom, I shall be delighted.

Note:  I have listed these dishes, just a few from a large menu, simply to show what a long way our oriental restaurants in Cyprus have to go.

 

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