In connection with the May 2008 championships to name the best European sommelier, Association de la Sommellerie Internationale representative Michèle Chantôme, Bulgarian Association of Sommeliers president Maria Yordanova and others gave a news conference on April 1 at Bulgarian news agency BTA.

This year will be the first that the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI) is holding such a competition outside of France; the first was held in 1988, upon initiative of Chantôme.

As to why Bulgaria was chosen to host the event, Chantôme said that it was because Yordanova “is a very dynamic person, and when she is motivated, she convinces everybody that it’s the best idea in the world”.

Co-inciding with ASI’s general assembly, the event, to be held in Sofia from May 15 to 20, mainly at the Kempinski Hotel Zografski, is expected to draw more than 200 attendees from 45 countries. Each ASI member country will be represented by, at the least, its association president and a journalist, Chantôme said.

About 30 countries – or more so, the best sommelier from each of the 30 European member countries – will be participating in the title-granting competition. Others will come from as far away as Japan, such as ASI’s current president Kazuyoshi Kogai, who is the first non-European to head the association.

During the five days so far that she has been in Bulgaria – and this not her first time in visiting the country, as she was a driving force in setting up Bulgarian Association of Sommeliers back in November 2000 – Chantôme was able to visit, among other things, Vinaria, Bulgaria’s annual international wine and spirits fair in Plovdiv.

“There has been progress [in the country’s hospitality industry] since I’ve started coming here,” she said.
Impressed with the “excellent restaurants” in Sofia and around the country, she said that it would be even better if serving wine by the glass became à la mode. As such, customers would be able to experience a greater variety of wines at a meal.

“People are not expecting the quality that your wines offer,” Chantôme said.”

She also called for a greater advocacy for native grape varietals. The phenomena of “flying winemakers” who travel the globe acting as consultants to any number of wineries has, while bringing a certain unified standard to wines, brought about a loss of uniqueness and originality and indication of terroir.

“It is very important to make own-wine styles and to work on the specifics of each country’s grapes,” she said, lauding carménère in Chile, malbec in Argentina and mavrud in Bulgaria.