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The menu\u2019s croque monsieur<\/p>\nSohm intended to move to New York for only 18 months. Growing up in Innsbruck, in the Austrian Alps, he wanted to be a helicopter pilot. Like many childhood fantasies, that didn\u2019t come to fruition, and he settled on something more practical, becoming a teacher at a hospitality school. Having overcorrected\u2014\u201cThat was way too boring for me,\u201d he admits\u2014he switched to the more public-facing side of the industry, getting a job as a restaurant server. It was then, when he was about 21, that Sohm fell in love with wine. (Prior to that, he was a self-proclaimed Bacardi and coke guy.)<\/p>\n
The menu\u2019s croque monsieur<\/p>\n
After studying wine on his own time, he began his formal sommelier education in 1998. He rose quickly through the ranks and was named the best sommelier in Austria in 2002, a title he defended the following two years and reclaimed in 2006. Amid that stretch, he sojourned to New York in 2004 with the goal of improving his English to compete in international competitions. It paid off: four years later, he won the top prize from the World Sommelier Association. But more than the accolades, Sohm had discovered a career. By then, he had joined Le Bernardin after stints at Walls\u00e9, Caf\u00e9 Sabarsky and Blaue Gans\u2014all Austrian restaurants in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack then we had a very strong French sommelier community, and they controlled everything,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it was an uproar because how come an Austrian sommelier came to one of the most French restaurants?\u201d He proved his bona fides, and in 2013 Ripert and Maguy Le Coze, the co-owners of Le Bernardin, approached him with the idea of partnering with them in a wine bar. It was Ripert who suggested putting the connoisseur\u2019s name on it.<\/p>\n
Aldo Sohm Wine Bar debuted the following year, with a team that Sohm handpicked. Sarah Thomas was part of that opening crew, after meeting Sohm during a fateful dinner at Le Bernardin with her cousins. When her relatives divulged to him that she was a sommelier in Pittsburgh, he proceeded to serve a blind tasting to Thomas. \u201cHe didn\u2019t say what I got right or wrong. He didn\u2019t care about that,\u201d she tells me. \u201cHe just wanted to hear me talk about wine, I guess. So I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he offered her a job at the end of the meal, she laughed. Sohm didn\u2019t. Thomas promptly packed up and moved to New York. After she spent about nine months at the wine bar, Sohm promoted her to Le Bernardin, where she worked for another five years. When she decided to start her own business\u2014Kalamata\u2019s Kitchen, which aims to teach kids about other cultures through food\u2014Sohm was one of her earliest investors. He may have found full-time teaching to be too banal, but it\u2019s still a huge part of what he does now, identifying the next generation of stars and giving them the guidance to grow into their own\u2014whether that takes them into the upper echelons of fine dining or beyond the white tablecloths altogether.<\/p>\n
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Sohm\u2019s side hustles include a line of wineglasses, a Gr\u00fcner Veltliner produced in his native Austria, and books such as Wine Simple: Perfect Pairings.<\/p>\n
Overseeing two teams, at two very different spaces, feeds Sohm\u2019s prodigious ambition. He\u2019s on a mission to completely reshape the world of wine, from what\u2019s in your glass to the glass itself to what you enjoy it with\u2014say, Champagne with eggs. Along with his day jobs, he has partnered with the Austrian brand Zalto to create his own wineglasses. \u201cAs a sommelier, you criticise only, but you make nothing,\u201d Sohm says. So, he also now wears the winemaker hat, producing a Gr\u00fcner Veltliner under the Sohm & Kracher label, a relatively accessible quaff that\u2019s a collaboration with his fellow countryman Gerhard Kracher. And in 2019 he added author to his r\u00e9sum\u00e9, releasing Wine Simple, a \u201ctotally approachable guide\u201d, as the book\u2019s subtitle puts it. He followed that up with Wine Simple: Perfect Pairings, to help you pick the right bottle for the right meal and the right moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn wine pairings, you have three possible combinations,\u201d Sohm says. \u201cThere\u2019s the perfect pairing. Then sometimes you have flavours just going along\u2026 it\u2019s like humans\u2014they talk, they interact, but they never connect. And then there\u2019s conflict.\u201d It\u2019s that first one he\u2019s after every time.<\/p>\n
\u201cSohm fell in love with wine when he was about 21. Prior to that, he was a self-proclaimed Bacardi and coke guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside of the restaurant, the wine bar and the cellar, Sohm is an avid cyclist who owns six bikes, a number he admits is excessive\u2014especially in New York City. Riding is what he credits with keeping him healthy, when so much of his time is spent eating and drinking\u2014and drinking some more.<\/p>\n
Still, despite the 18-year career at one of the world\u2019s best restaurants, despite the top honours from his peers, despite the wine and the wineglasses and the wine books, Sohm doesn\u2019t consider himself successful. Every day, he\u2019s trying to figure out how he can self-correct. \u201cI like what I do, so I go back home that night, think of things which I can improve,\u201d he says. \u201cI get annoyed when I make a mistake, but I improve the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n
His quest for perfection may never be over, but Sohm does concede that he\u2019s happy\u2014its own type of success. Sometimes he finds that happiness while sipping a glass of 1980 Domaine de la Roman\u00e9e-Conti La T\u00e2che, a bottle now so rare and coveted that he calls it \u201cunattainable\u201d. And sometimes, if to his chagrin, he finds it while drinking a mass-produced ros\u00e9 on the beach.<\/p>\n
Photography by Tori Latham<\/p>\n