I recently attended a tasting of wines that were across the board so offensive, stupid, boastful, difficult to drink, overconcentrated, alcoholic, battered by oak, disrespectful of place, monstrous, built to impress, food-averse, obese and criminally expensive that I ran from the room, damaged.

Everyone else there – wine buyers for restaurants and retailers in the area – seemed to be thrilled with what they were tasting. And the price sheet was sure to note how more than half the bottles had scores of 90-95 from various magazine-based ratings factories. So what do I know?

Many of these wines sell at retail for more than $40 a bottle; more than a dozen will sell for $85-$150, and twice that in restaurants. (But of course, if a buyer were to “pre-order” the wines on the day of this tasting, there were huge discounts available, some 20 percent or more: what does that tell you about how much non-value padding is built into many high-priced wines?)

Anyway, the wines themselves had driven me half-mad, and then came the other half of allotted madness as I faced my own anguish at the solitary nature of my response. I was tempted to run to the window, “Network”-style, and scream, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Sure, de gustibus non disputandum est. We all have different tastes. I bring up this experience not to argue for a certain style of wine (at least, not now), but to shine a light on the great unspoken chasms of understanding that divide us. And to wonder how discussions among wine professionals, customers and diners might better reveal and bridge those gaps.

We have a special opportunity to get there, coming right up. The venerable Court of Master Sommeliers will offer its introductory course, for the first time in this city, Oct. 6 and 7 at the Portland Harbor Hotel.

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This Level I course offers an overview that includes theory and tasting, but the emphasis is on the type of insightful, empathic service the best servers care enough to strive for. (More information, including how to sign up for the remaining spots, is available at mastersommeliers.org.)

The Court is better-known than ever before, due in part to the success of the movie “Somm” as well as to the overall “foodification” of the culture. But its prominence has arisen along with changes in how we eat and drink.

Among eaters and drinkers in privileged sectors of the world, an enormous generational shift is afoot. While the majority of guests who have the money and interest to dine in fine restaurants are over 50, the majority of beverage professionals there are well under 35. This matters.

Classically, the sommelier who helped such diners rose up through an arduous apprenticeship program, and was a peer. Clearly, that’s less common these days. A direct line can be traced from the social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s to the loosening of norms around what a great restaurant had to look like (white tablecloths, linen napkins, etc.), and subsequently, how service was to be conducted.

Now, the guy or gal helping you decide on a wine is likely at least 15 or 20 years younger than you, and there’s a good chance he either wants to be your friend or show you how cool he is. Maybe y’all are sympatico, but let’s acknowledge some distinct cultural profiles.

In broad strokes: Those of an older generation appreciate expertise, restraint, quiet confidence, civility, empathy. Those who are younger appreciate passion, joy, irreverence, adventure, and … empathy.

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Anyone who cares about good service must be empathetic, and perhaps this is the best place to find common ground. But the ideal of the old profile offers a glimpse of perfection; the ideal of the young offers an expansive sense of wonder.

“We’re trying to dispel the notion of the old French guy with the tastevin,” the Court of Master Sommeliers’ Eric Hemer, who is helping to arrange the Portland course, told me. “But now there’s a new image to dispel as well, which is the punk rocker with the interesting facial hair and the tattoos.”

The French-snob-vs.-Brooklyn-snob issue isn’t just a battle of caricatures. It’s a sign of how quickly the ground is shifting, how much broader and more varied is the spectrum of available wines, how the nature of service changes as wine communication moves from vertical to horizontal.

Here’s an example of vertical: The diner notes that the wine list offers several vintages, cuvées or vineyard-specific bottlings available from a particular esteemed producer. He (almost always he) asks the sommelier to explain the differences among them and to recommend a compatible choice for the food. This scenario still exists, but is far less prevalent than it used to be.

The horizontal mode is increasingly common. In this case, the somm’s primary role is to convey enthusiasm. Rather than, “Try the 2004; the 2001 is from a better vintage but it’s drinking a little tired right now,” she says, “You need to try this new semi-skin-macerated white from the Arbois! It tastes like Stephen Malkmus’ first solo album! It’ll blow your mind!”

Lucky for us that, in Hemer’s words, “the world of wine is so much more diverse and vast now. Thirty years ago no one knew where the Jura was” (home of the Arbois commune in my apocryphal example above). What’s true for the wine is true for the service, as well. The sort of wine that generates such passion from young servers became available in the United States only very recently.

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I’m glad we have reached that state of affairs. I would barely even call what I sampled at the tasting that led off this column “wine.” I love adventure, and I love the classically beautiful. The big, jammy wines I despise are neither adventurous nor beautiful, but they are stable and soothing and immediately satisfying.

If that’s what you seek, then those are great wines, and the snooty wine writer or overenthusiastic servers, with their pop-culture metaphors and esoteric wines, will come across as offensive.

This is what the modern server, or somm or bartender is up against: on one hand, democracy, wide exposure, increasing sophistication; on the other, traditionalism, or a simple desire to stick with what comforts.

Regardless, there is a vast array of wines with which to cultivate familiarity; sometimes, they share so few traits as to inhabit different planes of existence. Like humans themselves.

“A good somm asks good leading questions,” Hemer, himself a Master Sommelier, told me. “For us, it’s all about service. Knowledge is important, but you have to learn how to read customers, and enter into their world.”

I’m lucky I had the freedom to run screaming from that tasting. A professional server or retailer whose job it is to help guide a client toward an experience he will value is not so lucky, and will benefit from the sort of training being offered in Portland in a few short weeks.

Joe Appel works at Rosemont Market. He can be reached at:

soulofwine.appel@gmail.com


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