Dariusz Galasiński: How best to connect about wine

By , 29 January 2025

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Here are two scenes I witnessed recently. One was a conversation my wife and I had with a sommelier. He brought the bottle we ordered and told us all the technical details: the soil and exposition, vinification, maturation, ageing, together with the varieties and the aromas and flavours – he knew it all. The other scene was a conversation I overheard in a restaurant. A guest, enjoying a tasting menu with wine pairing, with palpable delight and considerable surprise said loudly to a sommelier: “Gosh, all those wines taste different.” The two scenes describe a powerful clash of expectations.

As they go through their training, sommeliers are asked to showcase their knowledge and analytical skills. In training or in competitions, they are required to offer the kind of wine description and assessment the sommelier offered my wife and me. It is a formalised description of a wine, starting with the technical stuff and followed by the co-called ‘deductive tasting grid’. And yet, I keep wondering how useful such skills are for a sommelier in a real restaurant with a real customer. Like the one astonished with different wine flavours.

I think it is safe to assume that the expectations of the delighted customer were different. Here you had someone, probably with little experience of wine, who was on an enjoyable discovery of the vastness of wine tastes and aromas. I bet my bottom dollar, the guest could not care less about any technical details, probably meaningless to him anyway. The man was simply enjoying the wine and waiting for another glass to see whether it would taste different again. Indeed, as a committed wine drinker, I was not interested in a crash course in vinification. I just wanted to enjoy a bottle of wine with my wife over a meal.

And that is the clash. The sommelier sees the wine as an object of analysis, trying to excel in the analytical task, the guest wants to enjoy wine, possibly also discovering its tastes and aromas. How do we bridge it?

Let me tell you about one last scene. In an independent wine shop, a customer wanted to buy champagne. The proprietor offered two bottles, expertly describing the organoleptic differences between them…. and then it happened. One of the cuvées was made to celebrate the producer’s son’s birthday. The moment the customer heard about it, his hand reached out for the bottle. Gosh, I thought, the power of a little story. It makes a connection.

When sommeliers tell me about the soil, the variety, the ageing, I politely listen. Well, I interrupted the lecture once, as I just could not bear the peacock-ego strutting on the slopes of the Mosel. But as I listen, I keep thinking: will I hear anything I could be mildly interested in? Even though I am a committed wine drinker and reader, I come to a restaurant to enjoy myself and not for a lecture on carbonic maceration! I cannot accurately (and politely) render how much my wife does not care for such lectures.

Here is the sad ending of our interaction with the sommelier. The wine we ordered was a Donnafugata; the producer’s name translates as ‘woman on the run’. And so, we asked where the name came from. No, to our disappointment, the somm did not know.

And this is how he could have made our wine experience more enjoyable. A story of a noble woman, a widow from Navarre, escaping to Sicily to avoid unwanted courtship from an obnoxious suitor. Much like a story of Ernie Loosen not knowing which vineyards are his and waiting for others to harvest. Or perhaps one about the abbot in Gobelsburg opening his cellars, so the Tradition 50 cuvée could be made. Wine in a restaurant is not about technicalities, it is about stories.

Oh, you advocate for anecdotes, I can almost taste the scorn. No, I advocate for connections – two kinds, in fact. First, the stories I suggest make a connection between the guest and the wine, they make it more real, put them in cultural and social contexts. Who cares about limestone, if you drink wine from a vineyard which was already mentioned in 742 AD? And this is how you drink Rolly Gassman’s wine! And for good measure, you can add the story saying that the Gassmans start harvest when they see birds going away for the winter.

The second connection, and more important probably, a story offers is between the sommelier and the guest. Narrative theory’s bottom line is that storytelling sets up a link between the storyteller and the person you tell it to. It is a connection that made and continues to make us human. There can hardly be a better subject of a story than wine.

  • Dariusz Galasiński is a linguist and professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland. He has been writing on experiences of mental illness and suicide. He also drinks wine and does research into how it is spoken about both by amateurs and professionals.

Comments

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    Tony | 1 February 2025

    Selling (of any product) is all about meeting customer’s expectations.
    Once you have established their need you will know which route to take. It is a pity that many people in the selling game have not been taught the basics!

      Dariusz Galasinski | 2 February 2025

      This assumes that the customer has clear expectations, which is unlikely to be true in most sale interactions, and very unlikely in wine. While most people are likely to have expectations as to how much they will pay (which is a risky assumption), many, many people do not know what they want when purchasing a wine. That’s indeed why there is evidence that people buy what they already know.

      Both interviews with merchants and observation of retail environments confirms it quite well, though certainly more nuance is needed in exploring this.

    Christian Eedes | 30 January 2025

    Hi Dariusz,

    I feel compelled to defend my stance. While storytelling is undoubtedly a powerful tool in selling wine, I don’t believe it’s inherently more effective than information—especially for highly engaged wine consumers and trade professionals.

    A romantic story can spark interest, but it won’t compensate for poor quality or a lack of distinction in the bottle. Hard facts—soil composition, climate, fermentation techniques, and vintage variation—help explain why one wine differs from another. Today’s consumers are more informed than ever and can see through marketing fluff. While a compelling narrative may draw people in, the wine itself must stand up to technical scrutiny and critical evaluation.

    Surely storytelling and information should work together?

      Dariusz Galasinski | 30 January 2025

      Thank you, Christian. I am not certain our positions are mutually exclusive. There will be people/contexts in which technical sheets are what is required and no stories will change that. I suspect, however, that we are talking about a minute minority of cases (but I don’t know any research). And I doubt very much restaurants will be part of such contexts.

      Moreover, I made the point in my response to Davy. Yes, people will want to know the ‘technicalities’ such as levels of acidity (those loving gewurztraminer are perhaps less keen on xarel-lo), I know I do.

      My point is that this is not what sells the wine. in a retail context How do you choose something form the wall of wine? How do you choose between two malbecs, two bagas or two chenin blancs? And this is where stories come in.

      Finally, my view is that, outliers aside, technical sheets are never interesting reading. What behoves the retailer is to make it into a story. You know, you can actually tell a story of Chablis’ acidity in a compelling way, much as Rias Baixas alabrino’s steely salinity can be put into something interesting, rather than only a ‘fact’.

      To sum up. Yes, of course, wine is not only about ‘a story’, after all you must still think it delicious – your point is well made. But it is the story which will make it more attractive. Much in line with one of the most enduring adages of wine industry – wine offers insight into place, culture, society. Do let’ s make it so.

    Kwispedoor | 29 January 2025

    When you work with people in the service industry, you should make concerted efforts to adapt and relate with everyone. Instead, too often, wine servers try to impose their knowledge…

    Take wine shows, for instance. Let’s forget for a moment the servers who grab your glass and bowl-clutch it (soiling it in the process), who serves tainted wine, who is sloooooow and inefficient, who serves wines at incorrect temperatures, etc. Let’s look more at the personal customer engagement part of the encounter. How often does one get to a wine stand at a show and experience the following from servers: aloofness, unfriendliness, disinterest, and saying things you are utterly uninterested in? For me personally, that would be stuff like “it’s been matured in oak and has black currants and vanilla on the nose”. (For you, maybe – and so what?)

    One can only conclude that many people in the wine business are simply not trained properly (or at all). For instance, surely a few basics for people serving wine at shows who engage with tasters (so, let’s forget about logistics planning, wine temperatures, etc. for now) should, first and foremost, be to be friendly and welcoming. Then, acknowledge people the moment they get to your stand, even if you’re talking to someone else and can’t help the new arrival instantly. Your next priority is to get wine in their glass ASAP. Unless your current chat is extremely close to an end, you need to interrupt it momentarily and POUR! The conversations can (and must) be juggled, but nobody can be made to stand there with an empty glass while precious time ticks by. Some people taste 10 wines an hour, while others want to taste everything, and you don’t know which one of them has just arrived at your table.

    Next: at first don’t tell people anything about the wine (unless you respond to a question of theirs), but ASK them something. “Are you familiar with the wine?” “So, what do you think of it?” “What kind of wine do you normally like?” “You look like you’re in a hurry – how many wines do you aim to taste tonight?” The moment they respond, you will have plenty of clues that will steer you in the right direction. Some people want analysis or other wine/vineyard detail, some want the story behind the wine/producer/people, some want price and availability, some want your opinion of the wine, some want to brag with what they know, some just want to buy it, some want to make jokes or party, etc. Each of these people must be engaged with in a different way – which will also make your few hours behind the table much more fun and interesting (or at least more tolerable if you’re already one of the jaded ones).

      Dariusz Galasinski | 29 January 2025

      This is an interesting point about training. This morning I was listening to a podcast with Joe Fattorini. He was making the point that in order to be a wine communicator, fist, you must become a communicator. If you want to be a wine seller, perhaps first, you should consider what it means to be a seller.

      I think that the idea that selling wine is so unique you cannot compare it to anything else is nonsense. A wine merchant once told that he would always take on someone who excels in selling over someone who excels in wine. Blind tasting will be of absolutely no use, if you are selling a Liebfraumilch….

    Davy Strange | 29 January 2025

    I think this is freaking spot on! By all means, tell people a bit what the wine tastes like, but for non wine techies a human interest hook to reel them in is far more effective. There’s one winemaker I know who has a little secret involving a type of underwear, wouldn’t a tasting note that was full of oblique references to that be far more hilarious and engaging than a dry technical one? I cannot afford his wine, alas.

      Dariusz Galasinski | 29 January 2025

      Hi Davy, some people say that humanity started with language, I would say, humanity started with a story. When children are born, we tell them stories, when we teach them later, regardless of age, we pique their interest with stories. Indeed, if you look at advertisements, they tell stories of driving a car, cooking food, of making butter or a wearing a watch.

      There is no doubt in my mind that in a retail environment, it will be a story not the French oak that will sell the wine. The only issue is what story it should be. Because for some it might the story of reaching the conclusion that it will be oak that will make the wine sing.

      For example, I like baga. And I have read about Luis Pato changing viticultural practices to make baga better. I’d like to hear of such changes as part of the ‘baga rebel” narrative. I think it would be much more interesting.

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