Senior Sommelier

We're Hiring: Senior Sommelier

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused hospitality organization committed to delivering exceptional dining, beverage, and guest experiences across diverse markets.

Our teams collaborate across Food & Beverage, Culinary, Restaurant Operations, Guest Services, Procurement, Finance, Marketing, and external beverage partners to create sophisticated, personalized, and consistently high-quality hospitality experiences.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Sommelier to lead wine and beverage service, wine program development, cellar management, staff training, supplier relationships, guest engagement, and beverage quality across premium hospitality and dining operations.

The ideal candidate will combine advanced wine knowledge with exceptional service skills, commercial awareness, and strong leadership to develop a compelling beverage program while delivering knowledgeable, personalized, and professional recommendations to guests.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the development and execution of wine and beverage service standards.
• Manage daily wine-service operations and ensure consistently high standards of professionalism and guest experience.
• Curate and maintain wine lists aligned with the restaurant concept, cuisine, guest profile, and commercial objectives.
• Develop wine selections across regions, appellations, producers, vintages, styles, and price points.
• Maintain appropriate balance between established labels, emerging producers, premium wines, and distinctive discoveries.
• Conduct regular reviews of the wine list to ensure relevance, quality, availability, and commercial performance.
• Recommend wine pairings based on menu composition, ingredients, preparation methods, flavor profiles, and guest preferences.
• Provide personalized wine recommendations to guests based on taste, occasion, budget, and dining preferences.
• Conduct professional wine presentations, tableside service, decanting, and tasting procedures.
• Ensure correct wine-opening, serving, preservation, storage, and temperature-control practices.
• Maintain high standards for glassware, decanters, wine accessories, and service equipment.
• Manage wine inventory, cellar organization, stock rotation, and inventory accuracy.
• Establish appropriate storage conditions for temperature, humidity, lighting, security, and bottle positioning.
• Monitor wine condition and identify damaged, compromised, or improperly stored bottles.
• Maintain accurate records of wine stock, vintages, quantities, locations, costs, and availability.
• Conduct regular physical inventory counts and reconcile discrepancies.
• Monitor wine consumption, sales trends, stock movement, and slow-moving inventory.
• Develop purchasing recommendations based on forecast demand, seasonality, guest preferences, and cellar strategy.
• Coordinate wine purchasing with Procurement, Finance, and approved suppliers.
• Evaluate wine suppliers, importers, distributors, producers, and specialist merchants.
• Build strong professional relationships with wineries, distributors, representatives, and beverage partners.
• Negotiate pricing, allocations, availability, promotional support, and commercial terms where appropriate.
• Monitor supplier performance, delivery accuracy, product quality, lead times, and service levels.
• Track vintage changes, market developments, allocations, availability, and pricing trends.
• Organize wine tastings, supplier presentations, producer visits, and educational sessions.
• Evaluate new wines and suppliers through structured tasting and quality-assessment processes.
• Maintain detailed tasting notes and internal wine-reference materials.
• Develop and maintain wine knowledge resources for restaurant and beverage teams.
• Train service staff on wine regions, grape varieties, producers, vintages, pairings, service standards, and sales techniques.
• Conduct regular wine education sessions and practical service training.
• Coach team members on guest engagement, recommendation techniques, responsible upselling, and professional wine communication.
• Assess staff wine knowledge and develop targeted training plans.
• Support recruitment and onboarding of sommeliers and wine-service personnel where applicable.
• Establish service standards for wine recommendations, order taking, presentation, decanting, and follow-up.
• Monitor wine-service quality and provide real-time coaching and corrective feedback.
• Work closely with Executive Chefs, Restaurant Managers, Beverage Managers, and service teams to develop food-and-wine pairing programs.
• Collaborate with Culinary teams on seasonal menus, tasting menus, special events, and pairing experiences.
• Develop wine pairing menus for tasting menus, private dining, celebrations, and corporate events.
• Support VIP dining experiences and high-profile guest requirements with discretion and attention to detail.
• Maintain knowledge of guest preferences and approved service notes where applicable.
• Handle guest questions, concerns, and service issues relating to wine selection and quality.
• Resolve wine-service complaints professionally and coordinate appropriate service recovery.
• Monitor guest feedback and identify opportunities to improve the wine experience.
• Support beverage promotions, wine dinners, tastings, special events, and hospitality experiences.
• Develop educational and experiential wine events in collaboration with Marketing and Events teams.
• Contribute to beverage pricing strategies based on product cost, market positioning, margins, and guest expectations.
• Monitor wine margins, contribution, sales mix, average bottle value, and beverage revenue performance.
• Identify opportunities to improve wine profitability without compromising guest experience or program integrity.
• Monitor beverage cost and minimize waste, breakage, spoilage, and inventory losses.
• Ensure compliance with applicable alcohol-service regulations, licensing requirements, responsible-service standards, and company policies.
• Maintain appropriate controls for wine purchasing, receiving, storage, inventory, transfers, and disposal.
• Ensure all wine-related documentation, records, and operating procedures are accurate and up to date.
• Monitor market trends, emerging wine regions, new producers, changing consumer preferences, and developments in beverage culture.
• Maintain advanced knowledge of international wine regions, grape varieties, viticulture, winemaking, classifications, and wine legislation.
• Stay informed about vintage conditions, climate impacts, sustainability practices, and developments affecting wine production.
• Identify opportunities to introduce innovative wines, alternative formats, low-intervention wines, organic or biodynamic selections, and emerging beverage categories where appropriate.
• Develop cellar and wine-program standards that support long-term quality and commercial sustainability.
• Prepare management reports covering wine sales, inventory, margins, supplier performance, guest feedback, and program development.
• Lead continuous-improvement initiatives to strengthen wine quality, service consistency, guest engagement, and commercial performance.

Key Performance Indicators

• Wine revenue
• Wine revenue growth
• Wine gross margin
• Beverage cost percentage
• Wine sales per guest
• Average bottle value
• Wine pairing conversion rate
• Wine pairing revenue
• Premium wine sales
• Wine list performance
• Wine list turnover
• Wine inventory accuracy
• Cellar stock accuracy
• Inventory variance
• Stock rotation
• Wine spoilage rate
• Wine breakage rate
• Wine waste percentage
• Stockout frequency
• Supplier fulfillment accuracy
• Supplier service-level performance
• Purchasing cost efficiency
• Vintage and allocation management
• Guest wine satisfaction
• Wine-service satisfaction
• Wine-related complaint rate
• Wine-service recovery performance
• Staff wine-training completion
• Staff wine-knowledge assessment
• Wine-service compliance
• Wine presentation accuracy
• Wine temperature compliance
• Decanting and service quality
• Wine pairing satisfaction
• Wine event attendance
• Wine event revenue
• New wine introduction performance
• Contribution from new selections
• VIP wine-service satisfaction
• Cellar condition compliance
• Responsible-service compliance
• Continuous-improvement completion

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in sommelier services, luxury hospitality, fine dining, wine program management, beverage operations, or premium restaurant environments, preferably within internationally recognized hotels, restaurants, resorts, private clubs, or high-end dining establishments.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Extensive knowledge of international wines, wine regions, grape varieties, producers, vintages, and winemaking techniques.
• Strong practical experience providing professional wine recommendations and table-side service.
• Advanced knowledge of wine and food pairing principles.
• Experience managing or supporting sophisticated wine lists and cellar operations.
• Strong understanding of wine purchasing, inventory management, storage, and stock control.
• Experience working with wine distributors, importers, producers, and specialist suppliers.
• Strong supplier relationship-management and negotiation skills.
• Excellent sensory evaluation and wine-tasting capabilities.
• Experience conducting wine tastings, staff education, and professional training.
• Strong leadership, coaching, and team-development skills.
• Excellent guest-service and interpersonal capabilities.
• Ability to communicate complex wine concepts clearly to both wine professionals and guests with limited wine knowledge.
• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of beverage profitability.