Identifying a Sommelier

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Chuck Byers for Expert Village, and I'd like to introduce to you, a sommelier and a chef from the Fifth Restaurant. J.P. Challet is experienced in all facets of wine tasting and serving. Most of the chefs, they don't look at the wine. And for me it's always a time to care about the wine and be careful. I always say it's easier to taste a wine than the food, than a food is a wine. The food is always very complicated, sophisticated. Most of the time the chefs do it very complicated, and sometimes so complicated that the wine destroys. So it was very, very important for me, and also there are so many parts of a restaurant. It's like a passion. It's like a chef. It's the same passion. The chef usually has passion for food. I think there's not enough chefs who know about wine. They don't know enough about wine. Most sommeliers think about the bottom line. Basically they are in the business of recommending wines to clients in restaurants, and they have to respect the fact that there are mark ups. The restaurant needs a certain return for the wines that they've been holding. Wine writers have no conscience. We can just write just what we think about the wines, and of course we keep pricing in the back of our minds. If something is outrageously expensive and really not worth it, then we say so. Most of the mail I get, is asking for what's a good wine under ten dollars. Most people, for the daily bottle of wine, they want something that's affordable. You can get some decent wines in the ten to twelve dollar range."