If you had the chance to design an identikit picture of the likely sommelier at a place like Dromoland Castle, with its deeply upholstered furniture and richly appointed clientele, how might it look? Male, mid-to-late 30s - old enough to have some gravitas; young enough to avoid the pigeon-hole of the ancient, crusty wine waiter. French, because posh hotels and their customers expect sommeliers to be French. Handsome, to blend in with the surroundings. Extremely professional, with a good enough palate to make some smart additions to the wine list. But let's add a sense of humour - a smile to thaw any guests who arrive at their table frostier than frozen margaritas.
Pascal Playon fits the picture - so it's no great surprise that he should have scooped the Best Wine List Outside Dublin prize in the recent Bushmills Malt Irish Restaurant Awards, besides being named Sommelier of the Year in the 2000 edition of Georgina Campbell's Tipperary Water Guide to Ireland. What is truly astonishing is that this engaging Breton, brought up like many Bretons on his family's home-produced cider, had barely drunk wine at all until just over four years ago. Talk about a fast worker! And the guy is now reckoned to have one of the best palates in the country.
"He's just amazing," says Patrick Egan, a buyer and seller of fine wines for decades (see below). "I'd trust his palate much more readily than my own." How did it come about, this sudden plunge into wine?
Having worked as a sports teacher, social welfare clerk, photographer and pub manager, Pascal Playon came to Ireland in 1993 to learn English. "After four months I still couldn't say much more than yes, no, thank-you and a pint of Guinness, please," he says, "so I decided to stay until I'd made more progress." Drifting into the hospitality business, he found himself running the bar in Adare Manor, then reluctantly agreeing to take over as sommelier - but handing in his notice a couple of weeks later. "I said I was sick of being embarrassed every night - knowing practically nothing about wine."
The very weekend of his resignation, he went, out of curiosity, to a wine event in Killarney - his first real tasting. Conversion on the road to Damascus. "I don't know what happened, but when I started to taste I could feel huge excitement inside. People thought I had been doing it for 10 years. It was as if I had been touched by a fairy with a magic stick." He asked for the job back and started learning about wine like a man possessed. Et voila. Dromoland beckoned.
The wine list is heavily endowed with the French classics the hotel's big spenders expect. "Rich people want white Burgundy and red Bordeaux and that's it," Playon says. "They don't want to hear about anything else - except maybe the vintage." Classed growths dominate five or six pages - many at several hundred pounds a bottle. Chateau Le Pin 1988 weighs in at £1,515; Petrus 1971 at £1,789. If it's any comfort to you, Playon figures that serious wine lovers don't usually spend more than £800 a bottle; bottles over £1,000 are bought by show-offs.
But for non-millionaires, he is introducing adventurous alternatives. Glorious new Italians include Gaja, Conterno and Giacosa. More affordable additions include Martin Codax Albarino from Galicia; a Lugana, a Roussanne from Domaines Virginie and a daring Montlouis discovered on Playon's first wine trip, to the Loire. This will star on the new list of house wines - six white and six red, served by bottle or glass. Every night, he opens something extra as a house wine - sometimes a bottle as swanky as Reserve de la Comtesse 1996, the second wine of Pichon-Lalande.
"I always like to have something new up my sleeve," he says, beaming. "I'll often offer regular clients a glass of white wine and ask them to guess what it is. It's a kind of game. I'm happy to discuss wine seriously, but I also love to have a laugh at every table if I can."
With almost religious fervour, he talks about his first taste of Chateau Latour 1970 - from a bottle which two Adare guests generously shared. "The bouquet was so heady, it was mind-blowing. Then I tasted it. I was on my knees!" But the lovely thing about Pascal Playon is that he can be just as enthusiastic about a modest young wine as a priceless antique treasure. His most exciting recent finds? Jordan Blanc Fume from South Africa and Languedoc stars such as Domaine de l'Hortus and Domaine des Estanilles - wines you can enjoy chez vous for £8-£9.
Dromoland Castle Hotel, Newmarket-on-Fergus. Tel: 061-368144