Master sommelier Véronique Rivest discusses the sommelier profession and rejects treating the title as an academic or celebrity status detached from service.
Assertion Partly supported
Rivest: No wine in the world costs over $40 to produce
“There's no single bottle of wine in the world that costs more than about 30 or 40 dollars to produce.”
Opinion
Rivest: Mass-market commercial wines are manufactured more like soft drinks
“A lot of wines out there actually resemble more Coca-Cola, you know, a soft drink, or processed cheese in terms of how they're made.”
Insight
Rivest: Avoid sommeliers who recommend wine without asking about personal preferences
“And if anybody gives you attitude, if anybody's arrogant, if anybody tries to recommend a wine, be it in a store or in a restaurant, without asking you a single question first, steer clear away from them, right?”
Insight
Rivest: No red wine is good served above 18 degrees Celsius
“There's not a red wine that's good above 17, 18 degrees, right? And the whole notion of room temperature I don't know, that goes back to the Middle Ages, but when houses are heated at 22, 23, there's not one wine that's good at that temperature.”
Insight
Rivest: Serving rosé ice cold mutes the wine and kills texture
“So many people drink their rosés ice cold, and that just mutes the wine, yeah? The better rosés, a lot of the better rosés are much better, like at 10, 12 degrees. A fridge is at four or five, eh? So, when they warm up, they really, rosés are not usually very …”
Insight
Rivest: Spitting wine delivers the exact same sensory evaluation as swallowing
“What's important to stress is that the learning process you will get everything exactly the same out of the wine except for the effect of the alcohol. Your appreciation of it, the evaluation of the body, of the structure, of the acidity, the tannins, everythin…”