For a long time sommeliers have had an aura about them. It is not unfair to say that they played on the pseudo-charisma they might have had, to the point that they thoroughly intimidated the client. And in the cost-conscious Britain of the early 1990s, many restaurants felt they could do without them.

But a new generation of sommeliers is emerging, many crossing the channel from recession-hit France where mid-spend restaurants can no longer afford their services, to try their hands in the varied UK market.

The hottest bit of news to break on the London restaurant wine scene this spring has been the April launch of the Young Sommeliers' Club of Great Britain. Now with 20 members, most of them French and aged between 25 and 35, the club is composed of energetic young professionals who hold key sommelier jobs in the capital's best establishments and want to increase their knowledge of wine.

A programme of tastings hosted by top producers is already under way. Usually held on quiet Saturday mornings, recent events have included the wines of Philippe Blanc from Alsace, Willi Opitz from Austria and Rhône Vignobles.

Tim Green, head sommelier at London's Bibendum restaurant, is enthusiastic about the new club: "I think it's an excellent idea; England has been missing this kind of thing. After all, not all sommeliers in this country are doing the wine buying, so it's important for us to get to know the producers who are coming over to give us special tastings, not just of new vintages but some of their old vintages as well. Naturally, we'll be invited to France to taste there and get to know some of the chƒteaux which we don't do in this country."

Asked why more young French sommeliers are coming to the UK, Green explains: "It's jolly hard for them to get into the circle of the older guys. Perhaps we're a bit more forward looking and can offer more for them to see in the sense of wines from all over the world. It gives them a good base and they can then go back to France and say 'I've been involved in the UK' and get a very good job over there."

How did Green become a sommelier? "It was the very great influence of Anton Mosimann," he says. "He pushed me in that direction, which was a great favour to me because when I moved to Bibendum, we were able to put a better wine list in place in a very short period."

The most striking thing about the new breed of sommeliers is how likeable and approachable they are. In the British market, the young generation understand that they have to forge a relationship with customers which is not only based on a knowledge of wines but on personalities as well. They are human beings, not pretentious ogres.

Above all, they realise that their job is to understand the customers by interpreting their needs at all levels of the price spectrum. The new boys are "breaking the ice" that has been there for years.

One young Frenchman who has a natural flair for putting the customer at ease is Yves Sauboua, sommelier at Les Saveurs restaurant, Mayfair, and president of the Young Sommeliers' Club of London. His career makes a model case study of how to rise to the top of the profession and still remain personable and friendly.

Sauboua was born with a silver tasting spoon in his mouth, for his parents ran a bakery in Margaux, one of the greatest wine-producing villages in the Médoc. After hotel school in Talence, Bordeaux, he stayed on for an extra year in 1985 to study wine.

For much of this time his palate was trained to understanding the four basic sensations of tasting, which are universal whether for wine, beer, tea or coffee.

His first commis sommelier's job was at Bernard Loiseau's Côte d'Or restaurant in Saulieu (then two Michelin stars, now three) for a few months. "It was very good experience of Burgundy. And after that I worked for Troisgros for a year and a half, which was very good, too, going more or less every Tuesday to the wine area to meet the producers and taste their wines."

Following his military service Sauboua arrived in London, working first as a sommelier at L'Auberge de Provence and then at Les Ambassadeurs Club. Les Ambassadeurs had a very interesting wine list, he recalls,

"Very short but with some top-class Bordeaux and Burgundy. I opened quite a few superb bottles which were very good value for money. I then moved on to the Dorchester which was a very different organisation. There were six or seven sommeliers spread across the Grill, the Terrace and the Dorchester Club, but there was a very good atmosphere between us."

Sauboua arrived at Les Saveurs in Curzon Street in 1991. Chef-patron Joâl Antunäs' cooking, a delicate version of niáoise cuisine tinged with oriental influences, gained him a star from the conservative Michelin guide in 1994, and Sauboua's wine list is one of the most thoughtful and intelligent selections in London.

The finer bottles are very fairly priced for their quality, a fact not lost on Europe's best wine producers, who increasingly think of Les Saveurs as the place to eat when they come to London.

For young British hopefuls wanting to become sommeliers, Sauboua offers the following advice. "Go to a wine school in France, at least on a month's course such as the ones at Tain L'Hermitage in the Rhône and preferably financed by your restaurant as part of a training scheme." That, he concludes, can be very difficult to achieve, but studying for wine exams here such as the Wine and Spirit Education Trust's Higher Certificate and Diploma is fraught with difficulty too. "The fees are quite high, and the courses involve a lot of unsupervised private study."

"By comparison, as French wine students we were very lucky," says Sauboua. "We studied wine exclusively for a year, learning how to taste every day and with a professor or teacher to show us around, putting us right immediately when we made a mistake."

For Sauboua, the most important attribute of a good sommelier is to be humble. "Opening a great and expensive bottle of wine is not the invariable sign of the most successful sommelier. We are there to give the maximum amount of accurate information to the customer, and always to stay simple."

food matching

Matching food and wine is another crucial role. "It's very important because when you've got a large wine list with 300 wines, a lot of customers are a bit lost. Even if they know the name of the wine, they don't know what to choose with their food. Sometimes they want to spend £100 for a bottle, more often they don't want to go above £25. So we must be able to give a recommendation with the £25 bottle as well as those for the £100 and £200 bottles," says Sauboua.

"And we also have to follow thecustomers' tastes. Sometimes we see they want a red wine, they don't want a white. It's our job to find the right wine, even if it's not a perfect combination, at least in our view. 'I want a red wine with my fish', they'll say.It's a challenge that we should be pleased to meet. We must always be fair with recommendations by suggesting alternatives. And we must always be smiling."

Sauboua's rise to the top has followed the classic French route of working in the best places. A more famous colleague has trod a much stonier path to the summit.

Gerard Basset, French by birth but a true Brit by adoption, is the UK's best-known sommelier. Reared in the unlovely French city of St Etienne near Lyon, wine was not in his blood: "We drank it at home but I knew nothing about it," says Basset.

Basset came to England in 1984 to watch his local soccer team play Liverpool. He fell in love with Merseyside, decided to stay and got a job first as a dishwasher then as a waiter.

Frustrated by not being able to become a sommelier, Basset returned to France and took a chef's course at the Unifort adult education college in Beaujolais. He then cooked at restaurants and chain hotels in Lyon and Marseille. This knowledge of the kitchen was invaluable experience.

In 1988, he came back to England, but this time to join the Chewton Glen Hotel, New Milton, Hampshire as a sommelier.

The rest, as they say, is history. Since then Basset has either won or been a finalist in most of the world's top sommelier competitions, and heis now studying to become a Masterof Wine, the first waiter ever to do so.

In partnership with Chewton Glen's managing director Robin Hutson, Basset now plans to move to pastures new. The duo are planning an October opening for a new townhouse hotel and bistro with a strong wine theme in Winchester. During quiet periods they plan to offer wine classes as an extra source of revenue.

One of Basset's greatest pleasures recently has been to see his protégé and assistant at Chewton Glen, Mark Walter, win the London heat of the Trophée Ruinart, arguably one of the most prestigious of the international sommeliers' competitions.

Basset says that there are no real specialist sommelier courses in the UK - although he was sometimes lucky to be taught by wine-oriented lecturers at catering college evening classes.

So Basset suggests the best experience for the budding sommelier is to travel as much as possible.

"Take two trips a year to the vineyards if you can. But read up on the region beforehand, so you know the right questions to ask: otherwise you will assimilate only 20% of the knowledge available." o