In my recent The Feiring Line, I took on the current sommelier situation. Education. Certification. Social Media. Competitions. I put out a questionaire and in the end, those who participated where those who had pins who went alternative, who studied, competed, had conquered and left. In other words, the gamut. The conversation was fascinating. A few people chimed in against product sponsorship and the lack of acknowledgement of natural wine in the curriculum, the purpose and meaning and future of the profession and its relevancey. As I put it in my intro...
The rising of natural has upended the wine world. But you wouldn’t know it from last year’s ASI (Association de la Sommellerie International) Best Sommelier of the World Competition. I had been invited to witness the final days of the 2023 competition, including the grand finale, where the top three of the 67 international competitors got to duke it out in front of a crowd of about 4,000. The study needed for the theoretical exams as well as the mock service scenarios is an intense, awe-inspiring task. Contestants had to endure some written arcane “gotcha” minutia (like do they really have to know the AVAs for Michigan?). They were also tested on cocktail making and serving non-alcoholic beverages. And they were tested in a staged scene where guests proffered a mystery bottle to see if it was good enough to serve at a party. (Trick! The bottle had been tampered with in a laboratory and riddled with VA. No one called out the bottle as faulty.) Yet the organization ignored the biggest game changer in the modern wine world. It seems as if future best sommeliers are not required to understand the basics of the natural genre; nothing about sulfur, native yeast, nor what is the problem or beauty of a wine of nature. The ASI is certainly not alone, other mainstream sommelier-based organizations step in line.
I sat there in the darkened drama of the stadium, dolled up in formal attire for the afterparty, I found myself wondering…what was the point?
The introduction goes on but then I turn the conversation over to these fine folk and, you can read it as a subscriber if you go to thefeiringline.com. But meanwhile, with the little bit I gave you, thoughts? Where are you? Where are you on the notion of wine typicity? The kind of education? And on and on.. So much to discuss!
We are really pleased to see so many Diploma students interested in regenerative viticulture!