To most people, sommeliers are dour men with slicked-back hair and patent-leather shoes. At one time, this was a fairly accurate appraisal, although almost all the wine stewards I’ve encountered recently have been reasonable and unintimidating fellows. (These days, it’s the salesmen in good wine shops that I find haughty and patronizing.) Unlike wine stewards of old—men as leathery as a tannic Cabernet—Dagorn is more like young Champagne: bright, effervescent, and correct with 2 9 0
A L A N R I C H M A N
every course. Dressed in the classic black-and-burgundy sommelier’s suit (with an apron to hold pen, pad, corkscrew, napkin, and more), he is a comfortably approachable figure. Unlike me—and most professional wine stewards I know—he does not worry about tips. “You have to remember that the customer has to think of the waiter, the captain, and the maître d’ before he thinks of the sommelier,” Dagorn said.
“You wonder if he should even bother.” A wine steward at one of Boston’s most famous restaurants once told me he felt he deserved a 10 percent tip on every bottle he sold, and other wine stewards have confirmed this figure. They suggest that the customer break down the check, tipping the waiter and the captain for the food and the wine steward for the wine. (When paying by credit card, this would necessitate inking in a separate line on the receipt.) The wine steward from Boston is now out of the business, which suggests that things rarely worked out to his satisfaction.
When I signed on with Dagorn for my two-night stint, I charitably informed him that I would pass on to him the hundreds of dollars in tips I expected to receive for the thousands of dollars’ worth of wine I expected to sell. He didn’t seem concerned. He was more worried about my inexperience in dealing with customers, and he gave me a crash course in service that included placement of wine lists and ice buckets in strategic parts of the room, opening the wine correctly (“Turn the corkscrew, not the bottle”) and proper presentation of the cork (“I don’t see any purpose in smelling it; I’ve had too many bad corks when the wine was superb”). I remember a story told by the ex–wine steward from Boston of a customer who sent back a perfectly sound bottle of Montrachet after smelling the cork. The man, who was showing off for his friends, had sniffed the wrong end.
As the gate separating the restaurant from the hotel lobby slid up at five-thirty on a Wednesday evening, I was as ready as I could be in my rented tuxedo. Around my neck hung a taste-vin, the small silver tasting cup that has come to signify the office of the sommelier. In truth, I felt self-conscious and overly accessorized, like the Reverend Al Sharpton out for a night on the town. I fervently hoped that nobody would order F O R K I T O V E R
2 9 1
Champagne, for I imagined the cork exploding out of my hands, leaving a trail of lawsuits as it ricocheted off the heads of customers. And, I prayed, let nobody speak French. I understand little, and my vocabulary is limited to omelette au fromage.
So there I stood, as perfectly trained as Dagorn could get me in a few hours.
“Hands out of your pockets,” he said.
“Button your coat,” he said.
At the first table I served, I leaned over too far while presenting the bottle, and my taste-vin banged against it, clanging like a cowbell.
Dagorn understood. “It happens to me, too,” he said. “It’s not so bad.
It lets them know you’re there.” My second table consisted of a group of Californians ordering French wine for the first time and wishing to share the experience with me. They requested the 1981 Château L’An-gelus, a St.-Emilion, and asked how it differed from the Cabernet Sauvignons they were used to drinking back home. All St.-Emilions are blends, usually with Merlot dominating and the rest Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Ordinarily, I love to talk that Merlot talk.
I froze. I nervously started to speak at length about the Pomerol grape. (There is no such thing, although there is a Pomerol region in Bordeaux.) Fortunately, they didn’t know enough about French wine to realize how idiotic I sounded. Following my discourse on Bordeaux, the Californians ordered their second bottle—a Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon. They did not leave a tip.
At 8:10 p.m., I broke my first cork while extracting it from the bottle. That wasn’t as bad as what I did next. When I started to pour, tiny bits of cork floated into madame’s glass. Resisting the impulse to plunge my pinkie into her wine and scoop out the debris, I ran for Dagorn. He said I should have taken the glass away and brought another. As we hurried back, we saw that madame had already plunged her pinkie in and removed the cork. (No tip.)
I then served a gentleman who insisted on testing me to see if I could correctly pronounce “Montrachet.” Meanwhile, Dagorn took charge of a party of Japanese tourists. I pronounced Montrachet impeccably—
2 9 2
A L A N R I C H M A N
both t’s are silent. My inquisitor was impressed, but not enough to leave a tip. The Japanese left $11 for Dagorn. We could not figure out how they had arrived at such an odd amount, but Dagorn was pleased. The Japanese may be inscrutable, but
