Bulgaria has been chosen as the host for the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale’s annual general assembly and title-granting competition. Taking place from May 15 to 20 in Sofia, it is expected to welcome more than 300 sommeliers, wine makers, oenologists, industry professionals and guests.

With the purpose of naming the best sommelier in the world, the five days of the event include exhibitor stands; wine, coffee, water and cigar dégustations; visits to wineries and the competition to grant the title of European Sommelier 2008. The main exhibitions will be held at the Kempinski Hotel Zografski, which is also where the foreign guests will be housed.

A sommelier is a wine steward who has extensive education and knowledge about wine in all its aspects and forms, wine and food pairings, hard alcohols and tobaccos, along with knowing waters, coffees and teas. Sommeliers are traditionally found in restaurants.

The event is being organised by the Bulgarian Association of Sommeliers (BAS), along with support from the ministries of Agriculture and of Culture, the Bulgarian Association of Professional Chefs, the State Agency for Tourism, the National Wine and Vine Chamber, the Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association and commercial partners. President Georgi Purvanov will be patron to the event.

At a news conference held at Bulgarian news agency BTA on March 6, Maria Yordanova, BAS president, said that this year would be the first time that the competition has been held outside of France. The Association de la Sommellerie Internationale was founded in June 1969; currently, 40 countries around the world hold membership.

Bulgaria’s sommelier of the year 2007 Lyubomir Stoyanov will be representing the country. Participants from the remaining countries will be known in April, after registration will have closed.

The overall tone of the news conference indicated hopes for the event to provide a beneficial avenue for making Bulgaria’s wines better known around the world. Filip Ganev of BAS said: “They’ll come to us, we won’t have to go to them,” referring to the foreign presence expected. “Bulgaria had been known as a wine country (before communism ended). When people see what we can again do now, it will re-affirm what we did in the past.”

When it was incorporated in November 2000, BAS was one of the first sommelier associations to be registered in South East Europe after the fall of communism.