Overheard at a wine bar...

No, but the incorrect pronunciation had to come from somewhere as when people don´t know things in wine, they usually ask which gets back to Emily's original point. And again, why and how have so many sommeliers have invented som-al-yay?

Exactly why I never bothered to correct the guest with his Burgundy-Cab even though I probably could have figured out a way to do it gently. Just let them think it was a lighter style or vintage, steered them to something safer that they would be comfortable spending more money on than another “risky” French bottle. 

Now when it was my staff in the Riesling/Burgundy fiasco, and because the error was realized before the bottle was open, I tried to sort things out before opening the bottle  just to be safe. That was more on correcting my staff than the guest anyway.

I still think it’s funny to picture one of my best servers talking to a table about this Riesling blend from Burgundy and whatever else he came up with. Just goes to show that if you can deliver your line smoothly and with confidence, you can truly sell people bullshit.

The best part is he never did realize it.  They liked the wine, it just obviously wasn’t what they expected so we switched gears after that and chalked it up to anything else I could so he never had to be corrected. I just wish I had been the one to take the order and have the conversation but this was a big restaurant so that wasn’t always possible. Maybe he would have settled on the right thing but depending how he asked maybe I wouldn’t have picked up on his error. I don’t mind it though, in the grand scheme of things. If all of these wealthy people knew what they were talking about they wouldn’t need us.

Oh man that reminds me of one of my more embarrassing moments. It kinda feels like therapy to talk about these things, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has mixed up regions or something before.

Two top is in for dinner and I can’t remember if he was the winemaker or owner of one of the top estates in Priorat but that’s what he was drinking and he definitely knew what he was talking about. I didn’t know any of this yet though, and they were drinking an older Clos Erasmus and his guest asked what grape it was while I was refilling their glasses. Idk if I got Priorat and Ribera del Duero confused or what, but my brain was thinking about Tempranillo from somewhere with more French oak and bigger extraction so that’s what I said. Compared it to Rioja, etc. He just stared at me for a minute before informing me that they grow Grenache and Carignan in Priorat and Spain isn’t just Tempranillo. That’s when he told me who he was and it became obvious that he knew what he was talking about. We somewhat pleasantly agreed that I should stick to the Napa Cabs and he could tell me more about Spain and Priorat, but that I should really read more about Spain too, especially since I was working in a steakhouse. He said there were some great values there but also world class wines and looking back now that guy was so right. He was telling his guest stories about Rene Barbier and Scala Dei and I couldn’t even remember the correct varietal. I just wish I had known more about Spain at the time, I really should have picked his brain a lot more than I did. 

The one that gets me, and I hear it often, is "sum-in-yay"!  Where the heck does that "n" come from?

So is it wrong in Texas to say SommeY'all?