Here in the Wine Corner, we like to think we know a thing or two about wine and do our best to pass along what we’ve learned to those who may not be quite so far advanced in their wine journey as we. But we would be the first to admit that there are those whose knowledge, experience and, yes, powers, exceed our own.
Modesty forbids us from speculating about exactly what place we may occupy in this hierarchy of wine competence, but we are sure of one thing: at the very top, the very tippy, tippy top of this pyramid of achievement is poised a small number of exceptional individuals whose talent and skill surpass all others.
These are the world’s Super Sommeliers — a breed apart, who, in their daily rounds of tasting wine, taking inventory of their restaurant’s impressive cellars, and compulsively fiddling with their pocket squares, accomplish things you (apologies, Gentle Reader), and I (it pains me to report) can only dream of. In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting an occasional reminiscence of Super Somms I have had the good fortune to encounter over the decades, with a view to documenting their exploits for future generations.
I made the sketch you see above in 1977, in one of Madrid’s most fashionable restaurants, where I personally witnessed the great Juan-Carlos Tempranillo draw a cork on a thirty year-old Rioja using only his amazing powers of concentration.
The technique was initially a last resort, he explained, when, one busy night some years before, a vindictive busboy with whom he had just broken off an affair, threw every one of his corkscrews into the restaurant’s trash compactor.
“It wasn’t a nice thing to do, now was it? But it was the moment when I realized I had star potential” reflected the Super Somm, fingering his bright red pocket square. “So, really, he did me a favor.”