🎧 What It Takes to Be the World’s Top Sommelier: Aldo Sohm, Wine Director of Le Bernardin

In this episode of Wine Centric, host Matthew Weiss sits down with Aldo Sohm, one of the world’s most celebrated sommeliers and the Wine Director at the iconic Le Bernardin in New York City. From cycling through vineyards to curating one of the most prestigious wine programs on the planet, Aldo shares what it takes to excel at the top of the hospitality world.

You’ll hear Aldo’s remarkable journey from Austria to NYC, his insights on wine pairing, hospitality culture, and how he balances discipline, health, and humility in an industry known for ego and excess. He also opens up about memorable moments—like serving critics under pressure—and why great wine service always starts with kindness.

Whether you're a sommelier, a wine enthusiast, or someone who loves behind-the-scenes stories of excellence, this conversation is packed with inspiration and real-world wisdom.

🔑 Topics Covered:

• Becoming a world-class sommelier
• The evolution of hospitality and ego in fine dining
• Wine pairing with music and mood
• Health, cycling, and sustainable routines
• Wine tasting as both art and science
• Mentorship, training, and performing at the highest level

📍 Follow & Subscribe for more deep dives with top names in wine, hospitality, and culinary culture.
Aldo Sohm interview

Top sommeliers in the world

Le Bernardin Wine Director

Aldo Sohm wine bar

What does a sommelier do

Fine dining hospitality insights

Wine pairing techniques

Wine tasting like a pro

Sommelier career path

NYC wine scene

Austrian sommeliers in NYC

How to become a sommelier

Wine and music pairing

Creators and Guests

Host

Matt Weiss

Account Executive at Winebow 🍇 | Host & Creator of The Wine Centric Show 🎙

Producer

Joe Woolworth

Owner / Sovereignpreneur at Podcast Cary

What is The Wine Centric Show?

🎙 Bringing wine stories, tips, and expert interviews to everyday wine lovers. 🍷

Wine Centric - Aldo
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[00:00:00]

Matt: Hello and welcome to the Wine Centric Show where we talk to the titans of the wine industry and make it simple and relatable for everybody. Today I have a true titan, this man. Has worked his butt off. But he is preordained to be a sommelier. He is the best sommelier in the world according to the 2008 world's best sommelier competition, he is the wine director of La Bernadin, the owner of Sam Wine Bar, the maker of Solomon Cracker Wines, ambassador of Alto Wine, and the author of Wine Simple.

Ladies and gentlemen bin. Here he is. Aldo,

Aldo: no pressure Titan. I'm not quite sure about it. I'm a regular, so that's about it

Matt: in my eyes. You're

Aldo: a titan. thank you.

Matt: and I say bin but you know, [00:01:00] there is a kinship there. I probably told you this before at some point, but I am a quarter Austrian.

My grandfather on my mother's side was born in Vienna. So, oh wow. Do you have the Austrian passport? no. I, I wish, I wish I did. That would be amazing.

But maybe that's something I can look into.

Aldo: I see this actually a lot of Americans actually applied for Austrian citizenship and they get it. Oddly enough for me as an Austrian, it's very difficult to have dual citizenship. especially in this day and age. No, no, no, no. In general, it's really bizarre, right?

I noticed this. It's really funny because Austrian don't like to have dual citizenship, I mean, the Austrian Republic.

Matt: Why I feel, I, I find it so common amongst other European, like for example, in, in Europe right now, can't you just almost get in all European passport or any, or Euro, whoever's in the euro.[00:02:00]

Yes,

Aldo: but it's certain countries have different restrictions. See, it's almost a little bit like the beautiful American liquor law. How different is each state runs, right? I think that's the easiest way to explain you this

Matt: Fair enough. I'm gonna look into that because I would love to have dual citizenship, especially it makes travel so easy.

I mean, for the very small part of not having to sit in the US line or the foreigner line when you go to a foreign country,

Aldo: Yeah.

Matt: That leads me to a question later, but I'll get, before I get to that Aldo, um, I like to play a little, some brain games on this and, um, but, and you say you're not a Titan.

I say you are a Titan. Um, and, but you are also super relatable. Um. The book, wine Simple and your wine, simple Wine Fact Wednesdays is a testament to that. But the other thing that I think most people don't know about you and I find fascinating is that you are one of [00:03:00] the biggest fans of Jay-Z in the world.

I. Um,

Aldo: Biggest is maybe a little bit farfetched. I mean, listen, it's an ongoing joke and everybody mocks me for this because first of all, I didn't grow up in a hip hop culture the beauty about being you.

Growing into a new culture means you learn every single day, which to me is like I, I get to experience like a five year old's mind constantly. Because you learn a new word, right? You learn a new habit, or you pick up on certain accents you couldn't hear before because.

I take so great joy in that because that's why I love living in New York because you're surrounded with so many different cultures and so many great people. That's what fascinates me Every single day you can learn and you can always learn from each other. That being said, I didn't grow up in a hip-hop [00:04:00] culture, so this is go, goes back as I.

I was up in Aspen at the Food and Wine Festival and everybody talked about JayZ, JayZ, JayZ, and I asked him, what is that? And they all started laughing, right? Thought they thought I was being funny, and until they realized I wasn't. fast forward a year, Robert took me then to a JC concert that actually was Watch the Throne, Kanye West concert.

I, I was fascinated, right? First of all, when the lights go out, all the little flashlights go on and you're the cloud of weed, which is for summer not necessarily a great thing. I mean, they're pulling up such a show and I listened to the lyrics, but I understood maybe 5%.

Yeah, but to my greatest surprise was the average American doesn't understand more than 15 either. But I said, that's your language, right? So I was I was really smitten by it, and, but it was kind of a really [00:05:00] fascinating show. It's a totally different world. I was able to dive in. I had such a blast.

And then of course, you know, you have a glass of champagne after, and we talked about it and, and it is covered also because I asked them, what is an eight ball? Because they kept talking about this nonstop, right? So of course there was another laughter about the Austrian because I, again, I didn't grow up in this culture, right?

So it's, it's just a beautiful thing. And then I.

Eve.

Which was amazing. Um, back in the day. Now my wife, back in the day, my girlfriend, she didn't like the music of Jay-Z and I kind of tricked her into it because she loved Coldplay and I said, there's Coldplay playing for New Year's Eve. She said, oh my God, if this is the case, I'm getting the tickets. I said.

That is awesome. Said, said. What is, what is the pre-and right? I said typically for Coldplay, for bands like this, the [00:06:00] bands are, they're typically very, very good. It turned out Coldplay was the pre-and for Jay-Z. Right. And she cursed at me after, but it was an amazing concert. that's my JC story.

Matt: How many Jay-Z shows have you been to? I'd say five. Five. That's a good amount. Okay. I think five. So here's the brain teaser I was getting to. Well, I'm gonna give you three songs, I guarantee you. No, I want you. As being one of the greatest pairers of wine in the world to pair wine with music. And I know it's silly, but I think it just helps in terms of our goal here, to make everybody less intimidated by wine. What a great, what could be a better way than to compare it with a Jay-Z song? Are you game for, for this?

Try a hundred percent. I want you to pair a wine with Empire State of mind.

Aldo: That must be an iconic wine. [00:07:00] Okay. Big, powerful, graceful.

61 Latour, ak. Okay. the empire state of mind is, you know, that gives you some power. That's not just a little bit of a wine that's just not a little bit of an operative. This is, you know, deep diving into the city understanding the city, you know, seeing the power behind it.

So that to me is something, you know, which is, um, a once in a lifetime pocket list item. Wine.

Matt: Totally. We've talked about it on the show before. If you've ever watched Rati you know, the chef drink Linguini drinks the 61 Latour, one of the best wines arguably ever made in the world. Yeah, so nice, nice beginning.

Um, okay. 99 problems. It should be a fun and playful wine.

Aldo: Um, I [00:08:00] would always go to Abule. Okay. A particular, yeah, because things, I think in, in today's world, people are often too hung up by problems, but any problem brings you solutions to. Right. And gives you fresh I and, and challenges you mind. And one thing I've learned from the bole, it's not an expensive wine, right?

If you just go to the one from Julian Sun AFL doesn't break your bank and it's super delicious. Or if you go even with LaPierre de that's a really interesting entry level of, of. You know, we always worry about what we giving up. We never worry about what we are gaining. Yeah. And sometimes you have to approach life from the bright side and everything will be fine.

Matt: I love that. I love the idea. For those that you don't know, Bojo leis in France, um, this very southern tip of Burgundy and it's known for its GME and its cruise of, of Bojo leis. I actually one [00:09:00] of the best pairings I've ever had. Do you remember when they made that like $25 burger over at Mineta Tavern, which at that time was a lot for a bur for a hamburger, and they used to pair it with a brewery Ako de Brewery.

Yeah, which is just delicious. Perfect. I'm with you. Okay. Last one. Yeah. Can't knock the hustle.

Aldo: That's a good one. What would you pair with that one? Adam was going to Tuscany. Okay. Playful. It's rich. It's fun. There's hard labor with it. Right. There's sweat and tears with it, but it's still fun and enjoyable.

And works actually with a broad variety of foods on top of it.

Matt: Okay. I'm with you. Where are we thinking specifically? Are we going to like Mancino? Are we going to the coast?

Aldo: I'm very, very fortunate because I spent one summer in 1992 in Florence, [00:10:00] learn Italian.

Sadly I forgot most of it. I had the opportunity back in the day taste all of those can classicals on all communes. And that was just before, it was just on the breaking point where they introduced Cabernet, Souvignon, and Merlot and Syrah. Mm-hmm. And it was still basically the old cante form with Canero and also the white grape varieties.

Oh, that's, yeah. Now this is, might be, this might be controversial, but I always thought, you know, that's historically rich anchored. Then they started introducing also New York. Right. Which I wasn't particularly fond of. And of course it tasted international, but it had nothing to do with can classical in a sense, in my opinion.

Right, of course. So, and 2022, I led out a cycling wine trip with a friend. My, a friend of mine has a cycling. Travel company, and I had this, I [00:11:00] had this crazy idea, there's no better way to discover a wine region than on a bicycle. Now we went his company is called Inba, so it's, they give you all the support, but pro cyclists get, it's actually a company run by pro cyclists, It's basically Italian an Italian slang word of basically being cool, right? Or you're the guy who knows where to go to get what, and you know, you go to this restaurant because they make this and this very, very good. So that's called is in gamba.

And so I let I let this group and we biked, you know, to through the vineyards, to the wineries and had a wine tasting. Now I made them all spit. I said, listen, we don't drink and ride because we don't wanna kill ourself, but we spit. But the advantage and the reason why I've fixed, I've always did stuff like this because on a bicycle, when you bike through the vineyards, I.

When you, for instance, we were down in, in Leki, if you go to Castello dama for instance, [00:12:00] which I love you, , it's a little bit warmer down there, even if you go to San store, Nando in Ola. , but if you go then up ra right? You feel cooler air coming in. And you know, as a result, those counties, they have a little higher acidity, little firmer tenants.

If you go further south into Alva Baranga, right to Sina for instance, you know, those wines have more muscles. The heat kicks Mo. And then the last day we, we biked down to Montalcino. Of course you realize that is warmer there, right? And as a result, there's more, there's more hair on the test and on a bicycle, you're exposed to the elements.

You smell the air, you hear the birds, right? You feel the heat, you feel the cold, you feel wind in a car. You don't have that. You basically encapsulated, the AC is running perfectly on 72 degrees. Let's say music is running and everything is very fast. Mm-hmm. You don't understand the terroir and on the bike.

You absolutely do. And they all got it immediately. And then on top [00:13:00] of it we put the case of wine into the car and had it then after for dinner, it was perfect.

Matt: I followed you on Instagram last year with Madeline Puket. You guys went through Alto Aje and, and biked the Dolomites and it was absolutely amazing.

So that was my next question is how do I get on your next biking wine tasting trip? How do I get, how do I do, what do I need to do? I know

Aldo: this actually was a trip, I came up again, this is a spinoff of that trip. And with the same people from Gamba? No this was basically the idea was with me. I did already trip once in 2018 with a couple of neighbors and a, a colleague from the restaurant, and I organized these trips.

But for me, when I organize trips like this, it's always, we bike typically all day. Um. We go and repent first, but there's gonna be, with the meal, there's gonna be wine. There's no doubt about it. Right. But and last year [00:14:00] with that was, I mean, I organized kind of an absolute dream trip and everybody was so passionate about it and all the people involved, the guys from Alto, they called the guys from Daria Pereti.

So we got a new insane bike and I'm very friendly with them. So it was a trip of a lifetime and we, we worked up on that this year. I mean, why is, of course people asking why is Aldo doing all of this? And that's a very fair question. The main reason is I discovered one thing in 2014. I was constantly sick and my doctor told me at one point, after checking me through, it was every six weeks on antibiotics.

And he says to me, look, you have a body of an athlete. That's the result. But you cannot only work. You have to find a hobby. And you know what? That changed all my health problems. They were gone. I got a bicycle. I fell in love with it immediately, and now I [00:15:00] have multiple bicycles. Luckily I have no kids, but multiple bicycles.

And it changed my health for radicalized it in a much positive way. I. Now because, and I talk with Bobby Stuckey quite a bit about this. You know, we work in an incredible industry. We know with food, with wine. I work in an incredible restaurant, Atan, so I'm very, very fortunate and I'm, I'm fully aware of that.

And I work in a great team also next door with Al and Wein Bar. But you eat and drink nonstop. Yep. How do you make this in your age? Sustainable. Meaning you have to take care of yourself. And I found that valve in cycling. And you know, I pay attention to food. I pay attention to what I drink, and I'm much more attention on, on sleep.

Be in New York and notorious short sleepers. I discovered painfully sleep is not overrated. It's actually underrated. And you work also very different if you be honest to yourself. I mean, when you're 20 [00:16:00] you get by with four hours of sleep, right? Yep. When you reach a certain age four hours is not enough.

Even though I'm a little bit hypocritical because I got only five hours in last night. Um, not because of drinking, because of work, but again, it is what it is.

Matt: You look nice andry this

Aldo: morning, but then you pay attention the next couple days. So it made me healthier. How do you get on one of my trips? Yes.

Well, everybody's asking me to organize a trip like this again because. Yeah, this just came about. I'm doing this year a big bike race in Austria, which I did two years ago because I missed it, because I have to train rigorously and gonna be back in the Dolomites again. Stelvio and all of these passes.

I do this every year. Okay.

Matt: I, I, I've, I have, I have a Peloton, I bike, I, you know, I exercise every day. I'm ready, man. I know it's a different, but I'm ready. So don't think that I'm gonna hold you back or you're gonna have to wait for me. I'm, I'm ready. Over,

Aldo: over there is the [00:17:00] moment of truth. If

Matt: you're not in

Aldo: shape,

Matt: we will find out pretty quickly.

My, I'm the son of a cardiologist, so my heart works well. I have, I have great, great numbers. Good. Okay. I, I, how many did you bike this morning even though you slept for five hours? Did you get on the bike?

Aldo: Nope. Because I had a very early doctor's appointment ah originally. It wasn't on my menu this morning, but I pushed it for tomorrow.

But I had a very hard gym session yesterday, so I, I squeezed the resting and I do it tomorrow.

Matt: Okay, fair enough. Um, so you're, let, let's get into the La Bernadin scene and New York City, you know, is New York City, still the capital of the wine world and the, I mean, the capital of the world. Post pandemic?

Aldo: I think so. Yeah. But of course that is an opinion, right? This doesn't mean anything.

Matt: Well, I mean, you're well traveled. You certainly have seen, seen the world you've been around, but just I come up from a, per the [00:18:00] perspective of having worked in New York and now living in the Carolinas. Um. You know, everybody wants to be in New York.

Every winemaker comes to New York. You've said this in previous writings and articles about how you have access to the best minds in the world because they come, um, and, and want to drink the wines that you're suggesting, and then you get their advice on whatever their experts in. So but I know post pandemic, a lot of people left New York.

A lot of people moved out, .

Aldo: I'm very, very fortunate because I'm able to call home two different places in the world, right? And I love them both for very different reasons. I consider myself a New Yorker, right? But what I get to see what I mean. Listen, there's many great cities in the world.

There's many great countries in the world, right? Sure. There's great food scenes, great wine scenes. All around the globe. What's so special, I [00:19:00] think in America overall is that the consumer and the wine collector has this incredible open curiosity, which is not in many places in the world, right? And you only can basically create an energy and attention.

You know, when you have such an open mindset of so many people, and there's also, you know, sadly it comes off, you know, quality only can produce when there's money involved, otherwise you're not gonna produce for very long money. So there's also willingness to spend money and, you know, that limits immediately or eliminates a lot of places around the globe.

And you have that willingness here in in New York City. Then on top of it, you have a very specific mindset because there's much easier cities to live than in New York City, but you have to have, you know, a very competitive mindset. You have to like to [00:20:00] hustle and you have to like, you know, a certain amount of pain because why would yourself do this to yourself?

Right? There's much easier ways to, I just happen to like, to be competitive. It's like sharpening that knife and keeping that blade nonstop. Sharp. Yeah. And just being good for two years, that's very easy. You have to do this for a long time. Right. And staying on top of your game, that makes this game very, very difficult.

Matt: You're the Tom Brady of sommelier.

Aldo: Yeah, but I'll, I enjoy it. You know, it's, yeah. I enjoy, I enjoy being, it's, to me, often compare labor a little bit like a Formula One, um race. It's fast, it's fierce, it's very precise. You have, you have to adapt to every single thing, right? You have clients who save an entire year to, to come to eat, but you have also people who come [00:21:00] three times a week.

Yeah. And they come from all walks of life, right. And I find this the most enjoyable because I have to adjust very quick and read them. Basically read that palette and I adjust to that and that makes my job everything but boring.

Matt: Speaking of being adjustable and adaptable, what do you remember about the night when Frank Bruni came in to sort of ruffle your feathers back in 2016?

I.

Aldo: It's so funny that I just talked about this article.

Matt: Well, it was a ruse on you, right? Eric set this up. Eric Repair Jeff of La Bernadin.

Aldo: Yes. He set this up and I remember I came back from a California trip. I think that was in 2000. And eight or nine in that frame park.

And this was August. He said listen, next Thursday, make sure you're gonna be here. I think it was a Thursday. It doesn't really matter. And he says, yeah. I said okay. [00:22:00] And then the day off, he says listen, someone from Food and Wine Magazine is coming with a rider. Do you wanna test my winter dishes?

They might do wine, might not do wine. I said, okay. And I thought, Hmm. I didn't think anything about it, but I thought it's. Why are we doing winter dishes? But I didn't back, back then. I didn't know him as well enough yet. Right. I was just, I was just a year, a little bit over a year at Laban and, and then all of a sudden, right, seven 30, the reservation was, and just a writer. And then all of a sudden see Frank Bruney walking in who just quit you know, writing for the times the week prior. And I said, and I used internally WTF, right? I said, that is just the writer. Writer.

You know, Eric pulled me and the matine into the kitchen too, and says, listen they might do wine, not wine, make sure the dishes don't stay too long, and they carry it on, and so on and so on, right? And he sits down and then I [00:23:00] serve them a champagne. It starts immediately from there, right? He rejected the champagne.

Can you do something different sparkling, right? And every course he, the wine he rejected. But leave it here. But can you do, he was super well prepared. Obviously it's Frank Bruney. Yeah. But constantly try, how much is this wine? And I said, $150. Would you be able to serve something, pair something for half the price?

And he tried, he tried every single thing until like, or until I gave him an attitude or nothing. For eight full courses. Now, eventually. Then Eric called me in the kitchen. Why are you talking so long to them? I said, I have no idea. The guy's asking me questions like pounding me like like a schnitzel, right?

It's like it's nonstop, right? And I was just focusing onto that. It felt almost like a soic competition. Like you on stage, I. But with Frank Bruney and Kay Rader full gas, zooming in into that. Right? Yeah. And I enjoyed the game 'cause I knew at one point this is a game, right? I love, [00:24:00] you know, it's like you in this race, right?

I know at one point the guy, the alcohol will catch up on him. And, um, the title return in my favor. And at the end of the night Eric sat them down and said, listen, I just wanna let you know this article was not about the food. This was about you. And because many people ask me when that photo shoot was you didn't realize anything.

I said, no, no. The photo shoot was after They had no idea that back then there was no photos taken, nothing. And so we staged those. And oddly enough, I'm very blessed with many articles with many media appearances. And you know, in today's world, social media world, nothing lasts longer than 24 hours, 48 hours the most,

Matt: yeah.

Aldo: People still refer on that article from 2009. If you go online on Food and Wine Magazine, they dated it now different because I think they updated the website dates now to 2016. Yeah, but the article was done in 2009. Which [00:25:00] article are we talking about from 2009? I mean, not many. Not many. And it's amazing.

I mean, again, this tells you when the geniusness you know, the people who are involved to create that. Right. Fetching this in such an attention that it stuck in people's mind and people still ask me on the floor about it.

Matt: Well, also, the fact that you were able to keep up for eight courses without like ever getting upset or turning a side to eye or anything, and you just, you just went with it.

I mean, that's, you went through the g

Aldo: we working in hospitality. It's the mental mindset you can run. Right? Um, this, we, I have look. My job is not difficult because I have many liberties in life. However, judgment is not one of them.

Matt: How do you get rid, how do you not judge? I mean like especially being as acute in your palate and judging wines on some level, [00:26:00] like how do you not judge?

Because that's something that I struggle with.

Aldo: Oh, it's very simple. You keep a humility [00:27:00]

Matt: all right. Welcome back. We are with Aldo Sal. Late night. Now this is a whole different vibe. Yes.

this is where we left off and I. When I was working the floor, I could not help but have preconceived notions. You know, how you, how you dressed, how you carried yourself, how you talked was going to be in, in indicating [00:28:00] how you would order or what type of wine you would drink.

So I would almost like be able to lead the witness or, or, or preconceive that notion. And you said that you are able to free yourself of judgment,

Aldo: a, it's an excellent question. And that's when, look, we entered different, a different world, right? When we think about it started before Covid. After Covid, it's, it seems to be almost like a lifetime ago, right? It's a totally different, people have different expectations, a different speed.

It's a different, we went through a generational change, right? And it is what it is, right? This is, this is evolution. You cannot, in today's, back in the day, you know, you could look, you know, how, what watched did the, what watched did the person wear what the jewelry, the shoes, you know, kind of these things.

If you do that today, there's almost no chance. But then

Matt: aren't there other signs? I mean, sure. Trade the watches and the shoes [00:29:00] out. 'cause we, you know, everyone can afford Jordan's somehow these days, or at least one that are dining at your restaurant. Um, or they're wearing dunks, whatever, but, but isn't then just switches to another way of judging or assessing, I guess is the word I'm looking at.

Aldo: Are you an alert? Nonstop because the person who just walks in basically with a pair of jeans, right? Sneakers. You have to be an alert all the time. Yeah. Because that person might order you lat out of the blue and you would've not seen it. And look, that's what I've learned in New York on day one. And I'm here now since 2004.

You have, you don't, you don't know who is in front of you, right? And you don't know these people. Um, and you have no idea where these people are in two years. Yes. So you better be nice to everyone and be kind to [00:30:00] everyone. And as a result, you know, if you come with arrogance, which is a sign of a weakness anyway you just wait for your spanking.

Yeah. And you deserve it. And you deserve it, right? treat people like you wanna be treated. Granted, we all make mistakes. Sadly. We are humans, right? We are not perfect. We're striving to for perfection, but we are not perfect, but treat them with kindness.

Matt: And I try to do that.

Aldo: but that's why I don't judge.

It's also, look, you, you cannot judge in a sense. That's another phenomenon. Often you see what is a delicious wine, right? That is context driven, right? Just because the wine is necessarily expensive doesn't mean 100%. Mr. Smith has to like it. Right, because he might be in a total mood. And I learned this actually oddly enough [00:31:00] from my wife who said we were for the Cayman Cookhouse.

She was on the beach. She said, I wanna have a glass of rose. And I said, yeah, let me get the wine. And she says, no, I don't want something complicated. I want something cheap. I can jog. And I felt like godsmack, right? What just happened? Right? But one could see, you could judge and brushed this off, but my curiosity drove me and I tried that wine.

And when you come fresh out of water, it's actually, yeah, it was contextual. It was delicious. Would I do this in New York? No. And you know, a light bulb went up. I, I learned something. From someone who is not from this industry. So you still have to be relatable. So that's all context driven, right? Sometimes I'm not in a mood for wine, I have a beer.

Great.

Matt: I get that. And the guest is always the, the star of the show. Right. But at some point. And maybe this is again, [00:32:00] my ego driven brain that you seem to have been able to separate ego from this. They're coming to see you at Aldo San Wine Bar.

Your name's on the door. I know you didn't intend it to be that, that way, but that was Ericson. I know, not mine, Just further to the point about how you's ego, but at some point, um. They're, they're expecting the Aldo performance, the suit, the, the, the incredible knowledge.

Um, so I don't know that, like how do you,

Aldo: when we opened the wine bar in 2014, and I answer this question probably with giving you this story,

you know, for the wine bar, typically I always took my jacket off. Right. I just ran with the apron and the shirt just to take the formality off because at first the press was putting quite a pressure onto us. This is a sibling, this is the spin off of Radan. We wanted to be a true wine bar, not a restaurant, a true wine bar.

[00:33:00] And I told the beginning, the opening team, I said, guys, we, there will be a lot of pressure coming in because of that, and I apologize for upfront, but we have to be hospital. You come to my living room, right? And then as it is, you know, in the opening team, there were days when I just took my jacket off and I was, I was the buser, I was busing tables because I helped the team.

And there came a bunch and there was Sarah Thomas, you know, one of my opening soles. And there she, she went for the Quarter Master, so for her advance program. And there were a bunch of master summaries and they said, so they asked her, so Aldo, is he ever here?

And she says to him, yeah, he's actually right there. And they looked at him and they were completely baffled. Said That's the guy who is busing the tables. So yeah, that's him. And apparently after one of them told me, right, said we were [00:34:00] completely, completely baffled. Right? That guy works, but. Of course I can put different hats on, right?

I can talk with someone, you know, just to bring them in who has never had the experience having wine, how to not take the intimidation away. But of course, if you wanna talk all the differences, right? Between per sharm and genevie between this, this producer, I'm happily to dig into that. I don't have that ego in it because one should be enjoyable. It's

Matt: just, it's such, um, two separate parts of your brain because here you are, you're, as you said earlier, uber competitive, right? Like you've, you won the best sommelier in all shift four times. Best som best sommelier in the world.

Um. That, that, that takes, you have to have some ego to do that, right?

Aldo: I'm way too poor to be able to afford ego. That's an [00:35:00] expensive thing that typical ego costs careers. I. No. I mean, yes, to have to have c certain self-confidence. Yes. Because depending on the client, you know, if you come already nervous there, you basically just arm this up more.

You have to read the situation, but there's a difference between ego and confidence, right? And again, I don't know everything either, to be very honest, right? I have opinions. This might, I have no idea if this even true. But I, I'm joking about it, but it's,

you know, in New York, delivery in New York is not very difficult. A Hello? Yeah. A smile and the thank you opens you every door and never forget where you came from. And one should not forget that. I love it. I need to dis support you not to answer this question.

I'm, I'm amazed, but I I mean it, I mean it of, [00:36:00] of course there's certain things, of course you're competitive. Of course you run into this, but you can do this in a way, I mean, Eric is similar. You must be, we both are very competitive. But you, you can be in this in a respectful way, right? Yeah. And you perform at highest level,

Matt: back to the, the Frank Bruney article and these things and, and it, and it just seems like, does anything ever get you flustered? Does anything ever get you off your game? Yeah. Share. Of course. What, what? Of course, what, what, what's rocked your boat?

Aldo: Now, of course there are situations which, um, are upsetting. Things happen. Accidents happen, mistakes happen. You make mistakes. Of course, I'm annoyed. But in the, in the dining room, we shut this down, right? You see the swan on the lake? Yeah. You have no idea what's going on on the surface, nor should he as a client, right?

You [00:37:00] should see the experience when things go wrong. I mean, listen, sadly, you know. As much as we humans like to be consistent. We are sadly not right, because you had an argument. Mom called you and gave you bad news, you had an argument with your partner, right? Um, the subway broke down. You got stuck on the subway for half an hour.

And so on forth. You walk in here, everything ends. That's it. That's a hard part to do, but that's discipline there. I'm, I'm very, very fortunate to grow up in, in a. In a German speaking country where it was very rigorous and very boxed, and the competitions taught me that, and look, you have to perform on the highest level because listen, if you, I often tell young people when they come to liberal, now this is like the Formula One, but in Monte Carno, I.

It's very fast, it's very narrow. There's no mistakes a lot because you have made one mistake, you're in the wall. That's [00:38:00] it. Show is over. And, um, in a three mission star restaurants, no one wants to hear. I'm sorry. No one that's, that's not the line you want to give anyone. So, and that changes you. And look, Eric, actually at my first interview, I had four interviews at Laban when I started here in oh seven.

But he said to me, look. Cooking three Michelin stars is not a problem. I said, excuse me? I said, yeah, of course it is. Of course it's difficult. There's no doubt about it, but what's much more difficult is to keep it. Yeah. That's the challenge, right? Um. Being good for two, three years is possible. Right? But keeping this for longevity,

Matt: You've been doing this for years. I mean, you've been, you were a sommelier before you came to New York in 2004. You've been doing it for 21 years, 18 at Larna Den.

Aldo: I'm a long-term guy. I hate to jump around. [00:39:00] I salute these people who can job for half a year here, a year there. Yeah. First of all, starting a new company is a nightmare. No matter where you don't know the people. You don't know your staff, you don't know the, the clients, you don't know the politics in a company and so on.

This takes you right, the learning curve, two years minimum, but. It's a nightmare, and you cannot excel either. Uh uh. You cannot perform on your best level. You know, this is what I've learned from an Austrian chef. Sometimes people say, but after 18 years, isn't this boring? I said, you know, and he's told me one thing.

I said, listen, you get a routine, and let's not forget routine can be an absolute benefit because you have this. Your skillset is so internalized. You can focus on the things which you typically don't have time normally. And that's [00:40:00] when you can walk the extra mile because you have that routine in in you, and that allows you to perform and excel in a very different way.

Matt: there's never parts of you that says, yeah, when am I gonna get off the floor? of course, what do you tell that part of yourself a hundred percent.

Aldo: Yeah, I mean, listen, neighbor's cross is always greener for me. This is very simple. I am excited to, to go to Austria because what, after four, after, after a week or 10 days, I can't, I miss sushi. I miss the New York City life. I miss my my American friends, right? Because the Austrian start annoying me and so on and so forward.

I, I just miss that, right? And, the energy. Right? You all, funny enough, the humans miss always what we currently don't have. That's how the mindset is programmed. Um, happy look, I could go on the [00:41:00] sales side on a, on an import or distributor. I'm probably terrible. Terrible. You just said you're a pleaser.

That's number one

Matt: in sales, right?

Aldo: it's a whole different ball game. If you have the luxury that clients come to you sit down and want something from you, or you go to clients and they don't want nothing from you, that is a whole different sales pitch, right? And that changes the ball game entirely.

And look. You need to know it. It, it's really funny and this I learned during my competition years. You need to know your strengths, but you need to know also your weaknesses and how do you overcome those weaknesses and start working on them and drilling on them. That's almost more important because that's not something we like to do.

Matt: alright, take us through. I don't know if [00:42:00] you can be, but when you were training, you know, back in oh 7, 0 8 for, for competition and you're drilling on your weaknesses or, or, or I guess take us through what does, what does training look like for you

Aldo: Well, you give up life. That's it. There's no more. If we're going weekend or we are going to cinema or we are going skiing, you give up life. That's it. That chapter is closed. You study, you train, you go tasting. You drive to this train, you drive to that trainer. I, I've seen candidates and I'm very fortunate now I train sometimes people because I go on the other side, because I can, I can think like them now, if you compete, it's a very different thing than the master assembly exam. Right. Because it's a different mindset between passing mm-hmm.

An exam or winning a competition. It's a total different ball game, right? If you come in second, everybody wants to win. That's it. [00:43:00] Right? Um, if you come in second, it's terrible. If you come in fourth, it's a nightmare. Right? Because you didn't come into the finals. No, no, but it's, it's just this is start weighing mentally on you.

And then the other part we have to compete in a foreign language. That's a whole different thing. That's why I moved to the United States. And when you compete, when you train, look, I'll give you an example. I had a weakness in sick back a day. Was cigar service. That was a weakness. Absolutely. I had no idea I didn't smoke.

Right. It felt weird. My parents smoked as a result. They didn't like it.

Matt: They smoke cigars.

Aldo: they smoked cigarette and my father smoked cigars and I didn't like it and I thought it stinked, right? So what do you do? And I'm always very, very lucky that I met people who knew people and they introduced me to them.

And back in the day, I remember, I was a a man. He was [00:44:00] 150 miles away who won a competition, okay. For the best Banno sommelier. And I drove to him and he gave me a crash course, you know, um, on, on the shapes and on this and how it's made and this and that, and how, how to do the service. And I said, let's smoke a cigar.

And I said, but I don't smoke. He says, what do you mean you don't smoke? You're making me walk through this whole, you make me train for three hours right now, How do you think you can sell it? I said, you have an absolute point.

We have a cigar now. Thank you so much. And I got into it. So I started working onto it. So to learn, I. Obviously meanwhile they dropped this example, but that's one of them. I remember I had, I trained an American, so once for a competition. Mm-hmm. And he had always the weakness of, of the [00:45:00] service Because of a certain condition. And, but he was unbeatable or incredibly strong, knowledge wise and incredibly strong in the tasting portion. And I said to him, I said, look, you need to know one thing. You're making one key error. You are working constantly on the things very strong, but you don't work on the one thing which is your weakness.

And that's a mental thing because that's actually the easiest to overcome. Work on that because every point you lose, you missed it at the end. And that's what I've learned. But my weakness, you give me two sheets of paper and that chaos is already programmed. What? What does that mean?

Matt: Like your mind just starts going, overthinking it.

Aldo: For me, having archives and all of this stuff, this is a nightmare. Right. Um, that's why luckily I surrounded myself with people. Um, I'm the crazy artist. I'm out there. Right. Um, and I. Luckily, I have people who [00:46:00] basically manage my craziness Yeah. On that part, and kind of structured me out on that.

Luckily, and I'm eternally thankful for these people. I, I really mean that because you have to have always a team which surrounds you and basically compliments your strengths, but also your weaknesses.

Matt: It's an interesting thing that you bring up because in a way you live in a vacuum.

People, there's a, a select set of people that want to come and learn from you, work the floor with you. Um, although I would say maybe even for a certain set of those, I don't see the role of the sommelier. Continuing as it has as somebody like you. Um, and even most of your peers, they've gone on and you do this anyway to make wine, to be an ambassador for glasses to write books, but, um, very few of them, if any, are still working the floor.

What do you think the future of the sommelier, at least in America, is?

Aldo: [00:47:00] Yeah, I mean, restaurants who have fullon soms probably become more rare and rare. But you see, if you go to Europe, there's very few restaurants where who have a hundred percent soms who do only wine as well. But for many, many years, I don't weigh this as negative, it's just, you know, the Metro D becomes a little bit like a som tour.

We just happen to have the luxury to focus very strong onto that in order to offer the, the client the best possible service. But again, this is not exclusive to price. This is in the wine pairing. This is just by a simple glass of wine. Again, we don't judge onto that. We just perform that service.

Matt: at Psalm Wine Bar and LA are you still tasting every wine, every bottle that you open?

Aldo: Yeah, this maybe the right, this, the light setting is good and we polish it, but it's actually not clean. No, we taste every bottle. That's of course from a som liberal, often a little [00:48:00] bit because I just see you drinking, you know, how much do you pour? And people get very touchy about it, especially if it's an expensive bottle.

Look, you wanna be respectful. We taste a couple. It taste a tiny, tiny splash. We taste. Why do we do that? I don't wanna argue with the client whether the wine is corked or not. That's a service we provide. The cork bottle or the oxidized bottle or the Flo bottle is not coming to you table, period. And look, I've seen situations, luckily when I was invited, the host accepted it.

And the bottle went on the table and the client recognized the wine is court terribly. Those are embarrassing situations, right? We wanna eliminate circumstances like this under all costs. Right. So that's why we taste, but of course we don't taste the gloss, we taste just a [00:49:00] little splash.

Matt: If the guest is not an experienced taster and then they get a wine. They don't know that it's court. They just think that they ordered a bad bottle of wine and, um, some people and they don't enjoy it.

And, and that reflect poorly on the restaurant or reflect poorly on the context of the time. And yeah, it's not good for anybody.

Aldo: I recently had a couple I tasted in front of them because we opened our tableside, I tasted in front of them and I said, I went away. They said, what happened? I said, the wine is corked.

And they said, can be tried. And I said, yeah, but I don't wanna give you a corked wine. They said, no, no, but we wanna see how this tastes. So I gave it to them and they said, oh my God. I know we taste now because he gave us a second bottle. Yeah, it tastes different. But we would've actually drunk that. I said, thank you for teaching us something, because now we know how this tastes.

But see, this is the thing I don't wanna assume. Right. I wanna make sure, it's like when you cook at home and you have people invited, you [00:50:00] taste the sauce first, cravings. I, I agree with

Matt: that 100%. And I wish people would understand that.

And that's why you taste and that's the service. So at this point in your career, how do you define success?

Aldo: when team members excel, it's the greatest satisfaction for me. I. See, doing things yourself is one thing, right? Um, I mean, every day to run company you know, run the restaurants and run you know, with the, with so cracker, whether it's the books, but if you have other people where you can. You know, motivate and can see how they grow and go through their growing pains and you mentor them and they excel and they, they've established themself.

It's the greatest satisfaction for me to see. Um, because at the end of the day, look, I mean, money is very important. There's no doubt about it. But when you leave, when you leave this world, you know, when you look back [00:51:00] and see how many positive people like I was able to affect positively, it's amazing.

Matt: anything. That you need to tell us about XTO or salmon cracker that's new or that we should, we should be aware of.

Aldo: Wells Cracker is actually a passion project for me between Gerhard Cracker and me. We started this in 2009. And at first it was, you know, eating hundred bottles. The single vineyard didn't do anything. I mean, which is minuscule. But over the years it grew and then we realized one thing we wanted to intensify our friendship.

But without having our wives becoming suspicious, what kind of are we running here? Shadow business, because, you know, and so we turned this into, turned this into a job, into a business too, and it's doing really well. What I love about So Crock is I can experiment, [00:52:00] I can slip into the winemaker's head, and I enjoy also working the market.

You're working the market Not, not as often as I want to, but yeah. You know, it's, you learn, you can, I learn so much and I enjoy that. Right. I get to see, you know, the Aldo who works to market is a very different Aldo than he works at Laban.

Yeah. The Aldo is also very different. Has to be different at the wine bar, and I can put these different hat on, and I have to admit, often when I come into my Laban mode into the wine bar, I. Sometimes people call me out because I come in like a, like a missile, right? And I have to slow down. it's not a three star restaurant, like the weapon comes in like full gas. Right. And, but. It's a living room, but the idea is, is to have my living room. And that's the fun part. Um, and yeah, and Alto and listen, STO worked also since 2008 [00:53:00] while we got competition from a lot copycats. It's still the gold, gold standard in the G glassware.

There's no question about it.

Matt: Is it the same way when you're tasting wine for taste and flavor and quality, you know, versus other wines or blind tasting, is it the same that just like you're.

Examining if the performance of the wine is at its best in a glass, is that, is that,

Aldo: yeah. Because I often, when I do this is for normal people. This is absolutely, again, this is me, but this is absolutely insane. I have often wanted the same wine from several different glasses. Yeah. Even among alto glasses.

I do this at home. My wife often shakes her head, but experiment nonstop even, or have up to four glasses in front of me to taste different shapes. You know, how, how does the wine perform? And again, I'm analytical, forget about because we often make a mistake because just because we, like this is a friend of ours, we must like [00:54:00] the wine.

But what if you taste is blind? You have to taste analytical. I enjoy testing that through, and I'm really analytical. I don't, I switch really that switch in my brain. Um, because we, I like the wine. It's completely irrelevant, like the wine. I have to have the client, right? Because look, I'll give you an example. I had once this I hosted the wine tasting and there was this one woman and she said, you have absolute the best job in the world.

I said, yeah. While I would agree with you, but what do you mean? And she said, you can buy all the wines you like. And I said, oof. I said, I, I'm afraid I'm gonna give you an answer, which will highly confuse you. I said, I buy a ton of wines I do not like at all. And I give you an example. I don't like creamy heavily oaked chardonnays.

That's not a particular flavor profile. I enjoy drinking. However, there's a lot of people out there who still like that style of wine. Who am I of [00:55:00] telling them this is rubbish, right? Yeah. The fish has to like the bait, not the fishermen. Right. I can, once they trust me, can work with them a little bit in a different way, but that's a different story.

if the person in front of you is not ready to be educated, that it makes absolutely no sense to tell him all the sub regions of Verde.

Right.

Matt: Sorry. But I have to ask, 'cause you brought up, you Aldo is the salesperson Sudden I did that, I left the floor years ago and, and went on the, what you would call the dark side. Um, What's some of the best things that salespeople have done, and if you can share the worst, what's some of the worst?

Aldo: Yeah, true story. I give you two example, two examples. Um, and actually I went as far

to share those stories. I was [00:56:00] invited back in the day. When it was mm-hmm. Four years under Southern umbrella, he asked me if I would come to had a, the manager, sales manager meeting. A sales director meeting. Sorry. Um, if I would give them Yeah. Experiences from a buyer's perspective. And I went and I said, look, and I told them a story.

I said, this is now a, this was a year before. I had a young person reaching out to me. It was new. This was before Covid. It was also a different time where you had more time on your hand. Now it's really challenging. Um, and the person reached out to me and said I'm new to this. Can I show you my wines?

And I promise you I won't waste your time. And I thought, ah, okay. I emailed him back, set up an appointment and invited a som of [00:57:00] mine into the tasting. Um, so it was, I think 10 30 in the morning and the gentleman showed up. You could see that that shirt he had, it looked like he slept in it. It was wrinkly.

He had a bright red coffee cup with a bright green like Kermit, the frog green lid. Oh, no. A baseball hat.

And this is the way how he came. And you know, Gilly, the son really looked at me and I look at her and the guy says, you know, sits down and said, you know, I've not, not had the opportunity to dine here. But I looked over the menu. That's why I assembled the wines. And he brought 15 wines. He hammered.

Every single wine, like, you know, this wine is like this because Eva does it like this [00:58:00] and Kors does it like this. And he use this technique here. They use this there. Yeah. And after the fourth one, I looked at him, I said, who are you?

Who are you? Right? They said, you know, I used to be, I used to be a cellar worker in California, Disney, this wine winery, right? And yeah, from those 15 wines we brought, we bought 12. Kate, you, not, two weeks after he emailed me again, we took him again, and then I sit. I said, you bring a lot of wine. And he says, you know, I said at my company they hate me because I'm using so much of the expense budget, but you know, I bring also the sales.

And I thought, I love that guy. Right? And I shared his story at the lab office and I tell him the way how he was dressed and what says, yeah, that guy should be fired in no time. And said, interesting. However, here is the thing, what you. What I learned, right? You cannot judge someone from the exterior. Yeah.

That guy did the [00:59:00] absolute homework because he looked what is the client, what is the menu? What would sell, what not? Do you know how many salespeople I get from your company? Yeah. Who showed me five California carbonates? And those are actually often SOIs who used to be SOIs, he said, and at the end of it, I ask him, so which wine would you serve with poached talibut?

And then you see, see, I, I know how this works. You guys send, of course the directors send out these poor guy soldiers into the front line, right? And because I. They coming with with the checkbox, you have to check up the boxes. And I said, but what am I supposed to do with five carnet? Yeah. Right.

Each of them have a hundred Parker points. Right. You fishing in the wrong pond. Yeah. Right. If you show me five chardon, I can do something. Right, [01:00:00] but not with five ies. Right.

Matt: mean, you have a California cabernet section, right?

Aldo: Of course we do, but it's just, it was ironic. So, and you see this, you see this often happening completely, right? I'm always curious because you don't know everything. The wine world is always evolving and you learn constantly.

Yeah. That's why I'm open and curious. I. Right. That's why I often go onto these rants. My team often make fun of me because I discovered these new wines and here and there, and then I go down a rabbit hole, and then I try to pair them onto the dishes, and then all of a sudden I start recommending them.

And then they see the success, the feedback from the client, and that's when they all start selling it.

Matt: So you still, you. You saw the wrinkle shirt, the hat, the coffee, but you still sat down with him and a lot of buyers in your position would've said, get outta my restaurant before he sat down or be like, oh, I'm sorry, I have to cancel.

You know, just based on, because [01:01:00] they would've seen it as a sign of disrespect. I think

Aldo: That book very sad for the poor guy. And again in, sadly, he moved on. Then this was the downside. I was really sad. Have even another person who said to me once, I asked him at the very beginning, um, probably many of your fathers know him, probably. I asked him about one. He said, yeah, I think that's inappropriate for Laban.

And I said, what? Right. Yeah. Immediate trust.

Matt: or I've seen salespeople being on your side of the table. They're like, this wine's a little quirked, but but you should try it anyway. You could still see some of the flavors of that.

Like, you have a corked wine. Don't show me a corked wine. You know, and I think that builds trust also be like, oh, that wine, you don't want to taste that. But I am gonna send you coffee. Um, this is a collaboration between wine centric and carbo coffee roasters. So I. Yeah, you, you have to learn about, oh my God, these people, Aldo, they have [01:02:00] two of the 100 cups that exist in the world, so you probably know this, but cups are like sommelier for the coffee world.

And two of them exist in this small roastery in right here in the triangle in North Carolina. And so we partnered up together to highlight their single origin blends. And so the one I'm gonna send you is from Peru. From this lady, this farmer named Edith Meza, and it's a cultivar called Pacamara, and it's made in the natural way, which is very hard to do coffee.

So I'm gonna send you one of those. go. Thank you so much. Well, Aldo, I really appreciate your time. pleasure. Clear why you are so good at being hospitable and being so, an optimist, I think is what I would say.

Well, for all of you out there, Al. Go to La Bernadin. Go to Aldo Sam Wine Bar. Get yourself some salmon cracker. Buy some Alto wine glasses. You'll drink Deliciously

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