Sommelire Marlis Bohnengel loves her job

Marlis Bohnengel makes no secret of the fact that she is happy with her job. “I’ve never arrived the way I do now,” says the 43-year-old from Michelau. She has been running a vinotheque in Bamberg for a good three and a half years. For this job she not only finished her previous professional life, she also turned around 180 degrees and completely reoriented herself. She completed the practical course to become a certified wine sommelire at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK) in Wrzburg.

Around their 40th birthday, some women and men threaten to fall into a mental hole. Midlife Crisis is the name of the phenomenon in English that is familiar to many. Marlis Bohnengel can understand that people nibble on the question of meaning in the middle of their lives. But she saw it as an opportunity to reorient herself again and start something new.

At the time, she had worked as a trained nanny for twelve years in a school in Schweinfurt with children with disabilities. It was a strenuous but secure job in the public service. To compensate, Marlis Bohnengel has “always”, as she says, worked in the catering sector on the side, simply because she enjoyed it. In the course of time she has expanded her gastro work. From 2018 she worked full-time in the vinotheque of the Volkacher Hotel “Zur Schwane”.

A one-week course acted as the initial spark

Wine and good food, she says, have always played a big role in her family. Your father comes from Austria. But in the end it took an initial spark before she realized that wine should be more to her than just a dear hobby. The missing spark jumped over to her in August 2018, when she attended a one-week IHK course to become an assistant sommelire. Then she knew: “This is my thing.” Now she wanted more of it.

Although everyone would have advised against starting the course to become a certified sommelire in October 2018 shortly before her 40th birthday as a total career changer, she did not allow herself to be dissuaded. For nine months she attended the part-time course with eleven other men and women, accepted six-day weeks in addition to her work in Volkach, completed block lessons and sacrificed her vacation days for it.

Her son had turned 18 at the time, reports the woman from Michelau. She knew that from now on she would have more space to take care of herself. “It was just the time to start again,” she says.

Invitation to dinner with an ulterior motive

And then the decisive course for her further professional life was set almost by itself: a colleague on her course ran the restaurant “Edelfrei” in Bamberg. One day he invited her to dinner there. What Marlis Bohnengel did not know: The invitation was not without ulterior motive. During the meal, the manager of the restaurant came over and asked her if she was interested in setting up and running a vinotheque of the same name with her in the vicinity of the restaurant.

Marlis Bohnengel was happy to be convinced of this. In April 2019, before the final exams of her sommelire course, she started her new job in Bamberg. She has not regretted this step a single day since then, she says. “I definitely don’t want to swap with earlier!”

The most fun is contact with customers

The vinotheque has wines from around 60 winemakers in its range. Marlis Bohnengel takes care of the selection of wines, which is still an exciting task for her. Whenever she has time, she is with the winemakers, staying in contact with them and selecting the right wines. However, what she likes most is the contact with customers in the vinotheque, she says. There are many regular customers among them, not even that many tourists, although the shop is in the center of Bamberg’s old town.

She looks after customers of all ages. Students on a tight budget come to her as well as the senior citizen from the neighborhood who regularly goes home with a bottle of wine in the basket of her rollator. What connects them is the joy of enjoyment. Some people know pretty much which wine they want, explains Marlis Bohnengel, so when it comes to advice, details are more important. Others are completely open, but are looking for the right wine for a dinner, for example. She also knows that she has to honestly tell her regular customers in particular if they absolutely want a wine that doesn’t suit them. This is part of your job as a sommelire.

Creation of your own wine

Although she is happy with the way her life is going, Marlis Bohnengel is still open to new ideas. In the coming year she plans to train as a specialist champagne sommelire at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce. In addition, she would like to create her own wine next year together with a winemaker from Retzstadt (district of Main-Spessart). She has already proven this year that she can do that. “My first time” is written on the label that sticks to the 1000 bottles of her wine, a cuve of Weiburgunder and Auxerrois, which she had bottled in May.

Chance also contributed to this premiere. One day a young winemaker was standing with her in the vinotheque with a cool bag in hand, says the 43-year-old. Nicolas Olinger from Iphofen, that is his name, quickly became sympathetic to her. So it came about that the two of them had the idea to launch Marlis Bohnengel’s first wine. What she didn’t know at the time: She had got involved with the “young winemaker of the year 2021”, who was later crowned by the German Agricultural Society (DLG). But that is only mentioned in passing.

Sugar only distracts from the taste

Marlis Bohnengel’s “First Time” also reveals something about her personal preference for wine. This has changed not least since her training as a sommelire. The longer she was concerned with wine, she realized that dry wines in particular taste best for her. “The less sugar a wine contains, the more you taste the wine itself,” she says. Sugar distracts the sense of taste (not only) with wine.

If the opportunity arose, she would like to pass on her wine knowledge to others, for example in the form of a course in the Gerolzhofen area. She describes the Franconian wines from the Steigerwald region as personal favorites that she would like to highlight. And of these, she likes the wines best that are produced under organic criteria. She sees great potential here for the future.