This article appeared in 'Hotel and Restaurant Times'

Frank Corr

One of the sad developments in the modern restaurant business is the sharp decline in dining room skills. Gone are the days when waiters would expertly carve a side of roast beef at the table or make ‘crepes suzette’ with style, panache and pyrotechnics. The expertise associated with the profession has been purloined by chefs and waiting staff have been reduced to the role of plate-carriers.

Not so with sommeliers however. Their knowledge, expertise and ability to communicate with the diner is more necessary than ever, as restaurants look to wine sales to make even a small profit and diners become a lot more knowledgeable and demanding about the wines they choose.

Unfortunately, professionally qualified sommeliers are few and far between on the Irish restaurant scene and are more likely to be found in colleges or in the wine trade. Even the Guild of Sommeliers numbers only a handful of practitioners among its members. A select few are employed by some upscale hotels and restaurants and these have been the source of candidates who represent Ireland at international sommelier competitions.

It was encouraging therefore that 30 sommeliers graduated from a course sponsored jointly by the Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Irish Guild of Sommeliers. During their course , they  were introduced to the practical and theoretical aspects of the study of wines, spirits and cocktails. The course included the marriage of food and wine incorporating the elements of service, storage and tasting.

It is unlikely however that the majority of these graduates will find employment in the industry. With a handful of honourable exceptions, Irish hotels and restaurants do not employ specialist sommeliers and rely on waiting staff to sell their wines. This may be a short-sighted approach because a professional sommelier will invariably bring a handsome return through recommending and selling quality wines, matching wines to the menu, compiling a cost-effective wine list, bringing knowledge and expertise to negotiations with suppliers, and most important of all, establishing a rapport with diners and thereby encouraging repeat business.

The very presence and skill of a professional sommelier adds enormously to diner satisfaction and watching a true professional in action is a joy to behold, from the presentation of the wine list, to the advice, discussion, presentation of wine, opening of the bottle, pouring and topping up.

One piece of theatre which is disappearing from this ritual however, is the opening of the cork itself. This year, amazingly, marks the 10th. Anniversary of the New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative which has dramatically changed attitudes to bottle closures throughout the world of wine. Apart from producers of classic reds, winemakers have been won over to the advantages of screwcaps and latest figures indicate that of the seven billion wine bottles sealed worldwide each year, the number using screwcaps has grown from an estimated 100 million ten years ago to almost three billion this year. 

The winds of change began in Australia in 2000 when a group of Clare Valley winemakers, exasperated with the inconsistency of cork and how it was affecting their outstanding Rieslings, decided to make the significant move to screwcaps.  Inspired by this decision, a group of producers in Marlborough, New Zealand undertook scientific research, the results of which confirmed screwcaps to be  superior to cork. The New Zealand Screwcap Wine Seal Initiative was formed and the first meeting was called by the late Ross Lawson of Lawson’s Dry Hills.

At the same time, a study on wine closures by scientists from the Australian Wine Research Institute also proved screwcaps to be the superior wine seal and that cork was inconsistent as regards oxygen ingress. In addition, it was found synthetic closures had the highest permeability and were only suitable for wines destined to be drunk almost immediately

One of the main challenges faced with promoting the acceptance of screwcaps was the issue of maturation in bottle. The idea that wine needs to ‘breathe’ in order to mature (and that cork allows a certain amount of oxygen to pass though to facilitate this) was dispelled by Professor Emile Peynaud, a French oenologist. He explained, ‘It is the opposite of oxidation, a process of reduction, or asphyxia by which wine develops in the bottle.’ 

Indeed tastings of red wines ten years and older sealed with screwcaps have proved them to be ageing gracefully and exactly as expected.

Another hurdle was the perception that screwcaps were exacerbating sulphide issues though as Michael Brajkovich explains, ‘Sulphide problems did not suddenly appear with the use of screwcaps, but have occurred for years in winemaking’

Sommeliers of the future may no longer pop corks, but their expertise will continue to enhance a restaurant business.