There are many people who would think nothing could be better than the job of a sommelier, i.e. being paid to taste quality wines? And yet, the truth is not quite that. As a matter of fact sommeliers are the top class of the restaurateur service and their job does not limit itself to winetasting only. Sommeliers ought to have very refined senses, and the skill to evaluate the characteristics of the divine beverage judging on its appearance, taste and flavor. Sommeliers also advise on the combinations of wine and foods, so that the evening becomes an unforgettable experience of delight for the restaurant’s guests. The people who practise that profession ought to have something of skills of a psychologist about them, too, i.e. they have to be able to ‘feel’ the customer’s mood and needs, so that they offer them the ‘right ‘wine at the ‘right’ price. Communication skills are also essential. The virtuoso sommeliers have mastered the art of serving the ‘drink of gods’ to perfection. They also know everything about cigars and drinks that go well with them down to the last tiny detail. In a way sommeliers ought to be poets deep in their souls, so that they manage to express their impressions of the wines they taste in the best way. Thus, they often use expressions such as ‘an explosion of fruit flavours’, ‘the colour of amber’, or the ‘wine lingers tenderly on the tongue’. The people who have decided to dedicate themselves to the profession have to be fluent in foreign languages, and acquire profound knowledge in viticulture and wine producing.
© Photo: Rumyana Tzvetkova
“Sommeliers are people who decide on the wine list in a restaurant, i.e. depending on the food they have to recommend certain wine varieties,” Stefka Sveshtarova, president of the Bulgarian Sommeliers and Wine Connoisseurs Association (BSWA), maintains. “There is a great variety of wines worldwide. But if you offer, say Italian food, it is natural that you offer also Italian wines. Sommeliers know what ingredients have been used in the making of the dish, and that is why they are able to judge which wine will go best with it. There has been a trend in Bulgarian restaurants to appoint sommeliers, whose task is to draft the wine list, and to take care of the proper storage of the wines and also follow the new vintages that come out on the market each year. Another point to consider is the wine culture of the customers and whether there will be demand for the sommelier’s skills.”
The Varna-based Bulgarian Sommeliers and Wine Connoisseurs Association holds regular seminars with the aim of raising the wine culture of the Bulgarians. People of different ages and different walks of life join united by their love of wine. According to Stefka Sveshtarova, any wine connoisseur could become a sommelier, but it takes many years of hard work, the mastering of extensive knowledge and the build-up of memory for tastes and flavours.
Sommeliers are among the top earning in the restaurateur business worldwide. However, being a sommelier in Bulgaria still sounds exotic to many and the occupation has not been acknowledged officially yet. Nevertheless, interest in it is huge, both among men and women. “Women have a better tasting feeling than men,” Ms. Sveshtarova argues. She has been doing this for more than 11 years, and has inherited the love of wine from her grandfather who used to be a cooper. “Wine is not just a beverage, it is pleasure,” she exclaims. And yet is there fashion in wines?
“There is, indeed. At present the fashion is for blended wines, the so-called coupage. In other words, people prefer wines that have been made out of several varieties blended together, so that more tastes and flavours are involved which creates a wealth and diversity of senses. Also at present the fashion is for more ‘down-to-earth’ wines, i.e. wines that are clearly distinct from one another by the soil the grapes grew on, and the hand of the master who made the wine,” Stefka Sveshtarova, president of the Bulgarian Sommeliers and Wine Connoisseurs Association, says in conclusion.
English version by Radostin Zhelev
