Sommeliers get a terrible press. Stiff-suited, supercilious chaps whose purpose in life is to upsell you something you can't afford with a side order of sneering. They sniff at corks (unnecessary) and take sips of your – yes, your – wine with silly little straws. Fortunately, these days, you are more likely to encounter a more evolved creature: informal, approachable, frequently female, with a brief to sell you something you'll love. Faced with one of these, I ignore the wine list (especially if it's one of those vast tomes), tell them what I like – white burgundy, albariño, grüner veltliner – and then let them get on with it; makes me sound like I vaguely know what I'm talking about. Failing that, safe bets I look out for include Albariño Martin Codax (the 2009 is at Majestic for £8.99 on a buy two Spanish wines and save 25% offer) and Domaine Gobelsburg Grüner Veltliner (Waitrose has the 2008/09 at £8.99).
The best sommeliers take you on an adventure, sometimes from an unlikely starting point. At Age & Sons in Ramsgate, Harriet Leigh sold me a Triennes Les Aureliens Blanc 2009 (£9.95, Flint Wines) when I asked for something entirely different. A green-appley chardonnay with a touch of oak and some lush fruitiness from a hint of viognier, it cost half my initial choice. There's now a case of it in my shed.
Occasionally, a creative sommelier will come up with something truly out of this world – in the case of Davila L-100, a luscious loureiro I had at the innovative Viajante in Bethnal Green, almost literally so: you can't buy it. Well, you can, but you'd have to import it from its bodega, adegasvalminor.com, and production is limited. If you do, it's a revelation: fresh without sharpness, with an intense, seductive earthiness from its late harvesting that's like finding hot, flower-scented flesh under silk.
That same sommelier, Linda Violago, also selected the more readily available Maculan Torcolato 2006 (£16.25 the half-bottle, AG Wines), an astonishingly rich, complex, almost truffly, golden pudding wine.
Of course, my tactics can go awry. In the hilariously excessive Imperial Court in Macau, I had a halting communication with a beaming, monolingual sommelier and ended up with a splendid bottle of vino. Thereafter, we were treated like potentates. Turns out I'd been sold not a £50 bottle, but one at £500. What was it? Burgundy, maybe? Unicorn's tears? The sommelier sipped from our bottle with one of those straws. I reckon he owes me about 30 quid.
• Marina O'Loughlin is restaurant critic of Metro London.
Photographs: Full Stop Photography.
