In 2023, the Latvian Raimonds Tomsons won the title of ASI Meilleur Sommelier du Monde. This year, two men from the other two Baltic states competed with Pascaline Lepeltier of France to be top ASI sommelier in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. And, after a very closely fought contest, one of them, Mikk Parre of Estonia beat the French candidate and Lithuanian Martynas Pravilonis to carry off the prize.
The competition, in Belgrade, Serbia, brought together 41 national champions, from whom a dozen semi-finalists emerged. This group then spent the day undergoing various challenges, involving beer and sake as well as wine, before lining up on stage at the city’s National Theatre where they and the audience and YouTube viewers learned the names of the three finalists.
To win the trophy, the trio each had to spend around 45 minutes serving and answering questions from groups of former champions in mocked-up restaurant settings.
While all three performed extraordinarily well across a number of tasks, Pravilonis, who came third lost points by failing to recognise that four anonymous sprits were all from different regions of Cognac. Lepeltier had no such difficulty, but she committed the cardinal sommelier sin of failing to serve a glass of sparkling sake before the time alocated time was up.
Speaking after the competition Parre said that the most important thing for any sommelier is ‘humaniyt’ and the ability to be a ‘people pleaser’.
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