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iPad wine lists could risk role of sommelier, warns Rousset

Published:  27 September, 2010


A top restaurateur has warned that venues using iPads to replace paper wine lists risk undermining the sommelier's role.

A top restaurateur has warned that venues using iPads to replace paper wine lists risk undermining the sommelier's role.

The warning comes as Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's introduced 15 of the touch screen tablets, which use SmartCellar software to allow customers to choose wine by colour, provenance or grape and price.

The handheld iPads can also include tasting notes, winemaker videos, help with stock counts and allow staff to easily change vintage offerings and replace old lines without having to reprint paper menus.

Xavier Rousset, co owner of London restaurants Texture and 28-50 said: "I think they'reincredibly practical, but I have never considered having them here. For one; they are too expensive and they are very anti-social. They take the one-to-one relationship between the consumer and sommelier away. For a long time the restaurant trade has battled to create those strong relationships and get the sommelier accepted, we don't want to begin to undo all of that."

But Andy Dowton, restaurant manager at Gordon Ramsey at Claridges, doesn't think it will harm the role of the sommelier and welcomes the ease they bring to the restaurant. "The skill of the sommelier is to sell the wine and they will always be needed on hand to give more personal advice."

But he said the convenience of the iPad wine outweighed its £429 price tag. "We had a 40-page paper wine list which we had to change almost every day. The iPads will pay for themselves eventually."

Sophie Roberts-Brown, executive director, Academy of Food & Wine Service, said: "There's only so much you can glean from a wine list whether it's a traditional one or on an iPad. There will always be the need for the knowledge and skill of the sommelier or wine waiter and their experience of tasting thousands of wines and of knowing the dishes of the restaurant inside out. The sommelier also adds to the theatre of service with the craft skills required in opening, pouring and serving the wine, which technology cannot replace."

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