Retailers Versus Sommeliers : When Someone Talks About A Restaurant & Their Sommelier I Ask : " But Do They Have A Good Retailer On Staff ?!? " That's So Important / I Will Explain Myself Here

I say this in complete earnestness as I feel strongly that retailers in fact teach more people about beer, liquor and wine than do sommeliers : and yet sommeliers, restaurants and chefs get ALL THE ATTENTION, as if us retailers do not exist, do not count, do not matter. How have we allowed things to degenerate to this point? It's unacceptable , someone has to say something, someone has to bring this ugly development out into the open to be seen, discussed, addressed completely and healed. There's no other option. I do not mind sharing the spotlight with restaurants, chefs and their sommeliers, but I refuse anymore to be silent, stand still, watch and say nothing. So be if it falls to me. It's really not what I want to spend my time addressing and defending. It's pretty obvious, lots of people agree with me I am sure, certainly many of them that I have spoken with over the last ten years as this has become a real sore thumb - a BIG BEEF with me. It upsets me when I attend important tasting events and the sommeliers are presented in glowing terms with praise and adulation and complete respect, almost as if they are celebrities, rock stars, movie stars in their own realm. Well, they are, but they are not the only ones. So are we in our realms. We should be included , too in these tastings, consulted and asked to express our opinions as well as the sommeliers. What?!? Having a restaurant where food is prepared and served and brought to one makes them forget all reason and abandon all their faculties and thinking and succumb to these comforts and joys and not look beyond them to us the retailers that, in fact, see and talk to, on a real one-on-one basis a whole lot more than sommeliers do with their customers. A retailer's customer can return as often as they want, ask for as much advice as they want, and have a much easier, much more personal and comfortable one-on-one with a retailer than they ever can with a sommelier. This is all so obvious, so clear to me. We do so much more for the average customer than does a sommelier. The only difference is that we do not have a meal to serve our customers, we do not have a special place for them to be seated and to be served , dined and wined and pleased. That's too bad of course but we prepare our customers to return to their homes or go to homes of others and do the best that they can to match wine and food together and make as many people as happy as possible. That's pretty special, too if you ask me. Perhaps not as glamorous, perhaps you will not see a famous celebrity pass by you but perhaps you will?!? As I have already said : live and let live : that's my motto. I do not mind sharing the stage with chefs and sommeliers, but I also want to be included, courted and asked to speak about both food and wine and how the two belong together and benefit immensely from being served together. Let's have both a sommelier speak and then a retailer. Do not say that we retailers are all sommeliers. We are not. We were not trained as sommeliers. In fact a whole lot of our experience comes from a constant weekly hands-on experience with our customers , where we have nowhere to hide : we face our customers face-on repeatedly, daily and weekly and monthly and live and breathe beer, cider, food , liqueur, liquor, water, and wine! It's what we do. We take it home with us, we taste constantly, we combine constantly, too. It's our job, our necks are on the line each and every time! So, when you ask about a restaurant or about a tasting or a meal or any occasion involving food and wine and all the rest I simply ask : " Do you have a good retailer on hand, that you trust, that you have consulted?!? Cheers, I am open to discussion about this. It's an open-ended blog this one, say what you have to say : let's have an open dialogue about this and clear things up and put things straight and give everybody the credit that they merit and deserve. Cheers, Anthony ( TONY ) Quinn 6/24/ 2103 Happy Monday Night! I wrote this recently at night and am just now proofing it to post now on Friday, August 2nd, 2013 from work. I have just finished my lunch and will return now to helping customers and many subjects and try and do the best for them that I possibly can. Cheers, have a great weekend. It's beautiful here now in Washington D.C., Northwest. Take care, TONY 8/2/13