sommelierge
Sommelierge is a mashup of sommelier and concierge. A sommelier is French for butler, and means wine Stewart. Today it means a trained knowledgeable wine professional, often working in restaurants, with expertise in wine theory, wine service, and wine tasting. A concierge is an upscale assistant and a knowledgeable professional with insights into and behind the scenes access to the local scene. Often working for a hotel, a concierge can find hard to get tickets to events and the teatre, and make reservations for a guest at hard to book restaurants among many other personal, or private assistant services. for international, regional and local travelers. A Sommelierge is the combination of these two professions, a trained wine professional who knows wine theory, wine history, wine ownership and an insiders guide into the power plays in the background. The sommelierge can and will provide private experiences that cannot be found on a wine list or a dinner menu, even brining wine industry players together to create a private adventures for their clients around food, hotel, travel and of course, at the center, wine.
My daughter wanted to be married in the wine country, but wanted something unique. Instead of calling Robert Mondavi, we used a sommelierge who created a once in a lifetime event. We even went to Sonoma three months earlier to stomp the grapes ourselves, for the wine served at the nuptials. Talk about putting your foot in our mouth. We had to swear secrecy about the venue and the singer who performed 6 songs. All I can hint about who he was, "...his imperfections were perfect.".