Daddy, What's A 'Sommelier'?

Quick answer? A professional, legal pusher.

Long answer? Sit back.

When last I was in LA (of all the two times I was there) Jennifer took my brother Pat and me to Sona, a fine restaurant with something called “matched pairings” on the menu. That means that you get an n course meal with n wines served – one chosen for each dish.

The person who chooses the wines is a sommelier. He chooses the wines for the restaurant in general, and also for this special menu.

We ordered such a dinner at Sona that night. Jennifer and Pat are accomplished wine aficionados, gourmands, and culinarians. I’m just a wino (recovered wino, thank you). They use words like “bouquet” and “esters” which for me mean something about flowers and a stuff that plastic is made of. They talk about food having texture which makes me want to puke.

It went a little something like this. We sat down and read the menu, and the waiter explained the matched pairings bit, if we wanted that. Pat said yes and Jennifer agreed. I went along with it because I’m a philistine who tries to look like he’s not.

Each course comes out with the chef explaining what he’s serving you as food, and the sommelier or his assistant carrying a bottle of alcohol flavored to go with what the chef made. For example:

Chef Soandso comes to the table and the waiter serves the dish. The sommelier stands by, ready to pour. The chef speaks, “this is curried pig’s throat, with a demiglace of duck breath.” Pat and Jennifer make approving sounds and grunts, which I try to keep up with. The sommelier steps forward, sets the proper glasses (you know there are PROPER GLASSES for each wine, right?) pours the stuff, and speaks, “For this course we have chosen a Corsair de Ganache, 1997. It is a light red made mostly of Hongo grape grown in the Frappe steppes of Anglobonia. The locals there stomp the grapes by foot, kicking off a week long festival of grape stomping that starts with a local dwarf stomping the first of the vintage.” He pours the wine and swirls it around the glass, smelling it afterward, and indicating very strongly that this is the behaviour we should also partake of…or at least I got that idea because Jennifer and Pat start doing it, too, and making more. "We chose this wine because the natural banana, sequoia and burnt sienna tones compliment the pork [he wouldn't say 'pig' now, would he?]. The cement-tone finish matches the gustatory tannins. Enjoy"We take a bite of the food, eat the wine, and I try earnestly to keep up and sound intelligent.

10 bite-size pieces of candied offal later, I have had as manyglasses of wine, and the dessert comes with dessert wine. By this time, the conversation could go like this and I would not know the difference:

“Your dessert tonight is epoxied rice with a gasoline sauce, topped off with castellated nuts. Paired with this is a Tri-Nitro-Toluene, from the original Nobel plantations.”

To which my more esteemed dining mates respond with the appropriate nods and grunts, while I slam down more liver preservative and say, “Oggay mang thanksh. Tha wazall reeeeeeellllly yummy! M?”