Aldo Sohm’s Wine Knowledge Is for the Masses

Le Bernardin’s longtime wine director thinks that wine can be elitist; it can seem snobby. Aldo Sohm readily admits to this paradox seated at a table inside his eponymous wine bar after lunch service at the three Michelin-starred restaurant, located just a few feet away. (Forty of his footsteps, to be exact.) He’s still dressed for service in a black suit, tastevin slung around his neck. “To me it’s sad when people say sommeliers are arrogant or sommeliers are unapproachable, because look — I’m dressed in black and I’m very formal, very old school, but that doesn’t mean necessarily we’re unapproachable,” says Sohm. “I like to be fun.” Sohm’s first wine book, “Wine Simple,” is a direct response to these assumptions. Rather than write something for his peers, he wanted to create a guide for readers who may know nothing about wine except that they like to drink white or red — if that. “Wine can be awfully intimidating,” Sohm says. “It’s like me going to a computer store and all of a sudden on the second sentence the person changes the language on me. I don’t like that, because that’s when topics become intimidating.” Jancis Robinson’s “Oxford Wine Companion” might be the

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