Saturday 7:40 p.m.: One Sommelier, Eight Guests, Three Problems
Saturday, 7:40 p.m., a 95-seat room. You are the only sommelier; two servers are on the floor and the pass is running 20 minutes behind. Table 14 - eight guests on a five-course tasting menu with the $110 pairing - has three issues at once. Guest A announces a "severe sulfite allergy" and wants "a natural wine with zero sulfites, nothing added." Guest B has brought a magnum of 1998 Left Bank Bordeaux that has stood upright in her car for six days, feels warm to the touch, and she wants it on the table with the lamb course in 25 minutes. Guest C is vegan and asks whether her wine contains animal products. The chef has just swapped course three from mushroom risotto to grilled asparagus with hollandaise.
1. How do you handle Guest A's request - what do you say, what do you pour, and what do you refuse to promise?
Read the worked answer
Say it early, plainly, without correcting her in front of the table.
- There is no sulfite-free wine. Yeast produces sulfur dioxide as a normal by-product of fermentation; almost every dry wine carries roughly 10–40 mg/L total before anything is added. "Nothing added" is achievable; "zero sulfites" is not.
- The legal ceilings give useful context: the EU permits about 150 mg/L total for dry red and 200 mg/L for dry white, while the US allows up to 350 mg/L. A low-intervention bottling can sit at 20–40 mg/L total - genuinely low, still not zero.
- Do not debate her symptoms. Sulfite sensitivity is a real phenomenon in a minority of asthmatics (wheeze, flushing, congestion); the far more commonly reported "sulfite headache" is usually attributed to alcohol, histamine and dehydration. Argue pharmacology later, if ever.
What you do
- Offer two wines you can actually vouch for, ideally with the producer's total SO2 figure available; low-additive, well-farmed bottles are the honest answer.
- Flag quietly that the dried-fruit garnish and the kitchen's preserved lemon carry far more sulfite than any wine on the list - useful, not confrontational.
- If she wants a true zero-sulfite drink, a spirit-based serve or fresh juice is where that exists. Frame it as a choice, not a rebuff.
Never promise "sulfite-free" in writing or verbally. Document the conversation in the reservation note.
2. Guest B's magnum is warm, has been upright in a car for six days, and is wanted in 25 minutes. Lay out your protocol and your fallback.
Read the worked answer
Inspect before you touch the wine.
- Fill level: a 1998 magnum should sit in the upper shoulder. Lower means either a leaker or a lot that has been cooked.
- Capsule and cork: corrosion, seepage staining, or a cork pushing past the lip are heat-damage tells. Six days in a car in September is a real risk, not a theoretical one.
Temperature. Warm to the touch is likely 24–26 °C. Stand the magnum in an ice bath for 15–20 minutes to bring it to 17–18 °C. Do not put it in the fridge - too fast, and it will over-chill.
Sediment. It has been upright six days, so the fine sediment is already at the base. Do not move it until you are ready. Decant off the sediment into a narrow-based decanter in one steady pour, leaving the last 50 mL behind. Decant for separation, not for aeration - a 1998 is not a wine to punish with air.
Taste before you serve. Stewed fruit, madeira or a flat, acid-stripped palate means it is heat-damaged. If so, tell the guest immediately and honestly, before the lamb lands.
Fallback. Have a comparable mature Bordeaux open and decanted behind the bar so the recovery is a substitution, not a silence. The house should be prepared to absorb part of the cost of a guest bottle that failed in transit - that is a management decision, made in advance, not at the table.
3. Course three is now asparagus with hollandaise, and Guest C is vegan. How does that change your pairing for the whole table?
Read the worked answer
Read the new dish first. Asparagus brings asparagusic acid and green, vegetal notes; hollandaise brings butterfat, egg yolk and lemon. The fat and acid demand a wine with cut and weight. The vegetable note is the danger: it can make high-acid, aggressively green wines taste metallic and bitter.
Two defensible strategies - pick one and commit:
- Bridge: a grassy, cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc that echoes the vegetal note while its acid cuts the hollandaise. Works if the wine is moderate in pyrazine, not a full-throttle Marlborough.
- Contrast: a textured white with lower pyrazine and real mid-palate - Viognier/Roussanne, a dry Chenin, or a lees-aged white - so the sauce has something to land on. Safer across eight palates, and safer for Guest C.
The vegan constraint changes the wine, not just the food. Ask whether the chosen bottling is fined with casein, egg white, gelatin, isinglass or chitosan. Bentonite and PVPP are vegan, and unfined/unfiltered is the simplest answer. The red you had planned for later - likely egg-white fined if it is classic Bordeaux - needs the same check before you pour it for her.
Logistics: you have 25 minutes and no second sommelier. Print the amended pairing card for the table, tell the server exactly what to say, and let the pass know the course change has a wine consequence.