Wo why does the eating and drinking humanity need a sommelier or a sommelier?” asked a reader recently, who came out as an expert in his commentary on a wine book by the sommelier Paula Bosch. “When I started eating in good or very good restaurants in the 1970s…” he got along well without sommeliers; To this day, he attaches no importance to their recommendations. He called the supposedly newfangled invention of the profession a “job creation measure”.
Now we point out that no wine in the upscale gastronomy is cheaper if you ignore the sommelier. Those who, in the late 17th century, wanted to afford not only a cook and a few waiters but also a sommelier who – as they said at the time – “takes care of the expenses for wine in a house” (1671) or who, in finer restaurants, was the person “in charge of alcoholic beverages” (1863).