Dateline: as1a

A young American sommelier is taking wait staff back to school at Asia's premier hotel. Ross Edward Marks, formerly wine director and sommelier at The Waldorf-Astoria, New York, now holds a similar position at the legendary Mandarin Oriental on the Hong Kong downtown waterfront.

Since starting there in January, he has instituted a series of classes aimed at lifting wait staff wine knowledge. Because wine culture is something rare in traditional Chinese life, even senior waiters at 5-star properties sometimes have gaps in their knowledge.

So, it's 4 pm on a sultry midsummer day and around a table n the plush 25-floor Man Wah restaurant at the Mandarin, staff sit and sip Shiraz, Zinfandel, Pinotage and Cabernet.

They're hard at work at a weekly wine education session run by Ross Marks. Every week, the New Yorker holds classes at three major restaurants within the hotel, as well as less formal sessions for staff at other outlets.

"You can't have staff advising diners on what wines should accompany their meals if the sommeliers and waiters are not familiar with the wines," Marks says.

He turns to the staffers... "Where do you find Shiraz?" Marks asks his eight colleagues to sniff and taste the wine. "What's the difference between the Shiraz and the Zinfandel? Would you serve it with spicy food?"

The questions go on, and on. The answers help wait staff judge what wine to advise with lamb with black bean sauce, for example. (That Shiraz will be nice, but the two spicy wines would be disastrous with a Sichuan dish.)

Marks adapts his lectures for every restaurant. He stresses to staff that they do not have to suggest costly wines. Nor should they suggest wine they don't like themselves.

The conversation roams over climates and soils, geography and history, labels and tastes. It's an interesting session, packed with wine lore and common sense. The students laugh as they learn. Ross Marks is very serious about his job, but he mixes humor with his lectures. "I had to taste 19 Australian Shiraz before I decided on the Evans and Tate from Western Australia for the wine list", he says. "The other 18 were disgusting."

One wine waiter asks why ChateauNeuf-du-Pape has no grape types on the label, and Marks swings into an historical diversion about the history of Rlione winemaking.

Later, he explains the aim of the class is to help staff guide clients, not trying to boost sales but aiding a guest in selecting a right wine to go with his meal.

"I've spent my life dispelling this snobby-assed concept of the sommelier," he says.

Before going to Hong Kong, he was restaurant manager and wine director at Hilton Beijing, where he ran master classes at the Chinese Wine Competition.

He also planned and ran the Hilton Wine School, a ten-week education program for the public.

In a former job, he was wine director and sommelier at The WaldorfAstoria, New York, where the total beverage bill was US$12 million a year.

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