How2Day: Duties of a Wine Butler

A wine butler helps patrons choose the wine that best complements their food dishes. red wine poured into wine glass image by Allen Penton from Fotolia.com
Many high-end restaurants hire an in-house sommelier, or wine butler. These butlers have usually been trained in culinary schools or have extensive experience in the winemaking industry. This position requires an extensive knowledge of wine, including trends, production techniques, wine regions and the quality of wines produced over many decades. Wine butlers often apprentice at a restaurant under a more experienced sommelier.

Wine butlers need to suggest appropriate wines and help patrons select cheeses and dessert items that complement their tastes in beverages. As such, a wine butler must be able to converse knowledgeably and cordially about the available wines and how these beverages will bring out the flavors of certain dishes. A wine butler at a high-end restaurant might also present and serve wine. As a member of the management, he must provide a level of professional service above that of the wait staff and other employees.

A wine butler will need to thoroughly know her restaurant's menu so she can select appropriate wine pairings. Wine butlers need to participate in tastings of each new menu item and might also need to train in the kitchen. Once a restaurant sets its food menu, a wine butler will then select the wines that will best complement those offerings.

Wine butlers must continually update their knowledge of available wines, the quality of those wines and which wines offer the most value to a restaurant's food offerings. A wine butler may need to travel to vineyards to sample and learn about wines under consideration.

Wine butlers order the wines and maintain good relations with wine growers and vendors. A wine butler will need to inspect each shipment to know the restaurant received the correct wines.

Wine butlers will keep an accurate inventory of the wines on hand. They will also help control costs by tracking wine sales and updating the inventory.

Wine butlers train staff to serve and discuss the wines with customers. A wine butler will also teach staff how to suggest pairings of wine with the restaurant's current dishes. Wine butlers will need to schedule and conduct wine tastings with the staff whenever the restaurant changes the menu or a new wine is added to the available selection.

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