(First published (for Meininger's International)in 2023, after the ASI - Association de la Sommellerie Internationale Meilleur Sommelier du Monde Championship in Paris. I'm reposting it now because this week I'm back at the same competition, in Lisbon. This time I'm here as a partner/sponsor, pouring my K'AVSHIRI Georgian wine and - of relevance to this piece - introducing our new SHA'ORI Zero Sparkling Tea. Everything I wrote three years ago has only become more true.)

When somebody says 'sommelier', what image springs to mind? Probably a man or woman in a smart black outfit, apron, some kind of badge, who knows a lot about wine and how it should be served.

Broaden the parameters and you might add cigars, Cognac, Armagnac and Calvados.

But did you imagine a sommelier knowing more about all the beverages the world is drinking today and will drink tomorrow than any wine critic or merchant? Until I spent days behind the scenes at the ASI competition in Paris, I had little idea how far beyond fermented grape juice their studies go.

Cocktail expertise

Each of the 17 semi-finalists faced three tests in separate rooms. In the first two they had to demonstrate tasting and serving skills. In the third, they were asked whether a table of bottles and ingredients contained everything needed to make a Sazerac and an Aviation. (Spoiler: it didn't.)

Then they had to identify five unnamed beverages. Answers ranged from lemon juice in sparkling water and non-alcoholic spirit to coconut milk and Nigori sake for the opaque white fifth. Most spotted the cold-brewed coffee. Many fingered the kombucha.

Finally, without knowing their scores, they had to propose a four-course vegan meal to go with those drinks.

Crowded field

Why does this matter? Because it reflects something crucial about wine communication and the drinks market. To the discomfort of purists, wine is increasingly one of a range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. It may be the most complex, the most illustrious and, at the top, the priciest, but it's still a runner in a race with other fit and speedy competitors.

One of the masterclasses was a detailed session on sake. Another was on Macallan malt whisky, described by leading sommeliers as a perfect partner for pigeon stew. Not so long ago, drinking scotch with dinner marked you as a citizen of an unsophisticated country. Now it's a pairing recommended by someone wearing the badge and apron. The same goes for craft beer and orange wine, which I doubt would ever have fought its way onto supermarket shelves without enthusiastic sommelier support.

And the trend only heads one way. In 2023 I reported that LVMH was planning a super-premium zero-alcohol beverage. Whatever happened to that project, the space it pointed to has only filled up. Wineries keep launching microbreweries and distilleries to create revenue streams that don't depend on capricious vintages.

I'm sure many in the wine industry will bury their heads in the sand and treat all this as a temporary infatuation. The problem is that this was precisely the French establishment's strategy in the 1980s, when UK consumers began transferring their affections to the New World. A quarter of a century later, that love affair hasn't waned, and Bordeaux is uprooting vines by the thousand.

The somm network

Sommeliers have another underestimated superpower: their global network. If a wine producer impresses a Japanese or German or American critic, they create a splash in that one market. Wine communicators in Washington DC or Wiesbaden don't generally read their Japanese counterparts.

But win over a sommelier from any of those countries and there's no knowing how far the message will spread. Sommeliers talk to each other on Instagram and WhatsApp all the time: they're competitive, they've made friends at international competitions, and they're looking for the next step up a ladder that runs from Boston to Berlin to Beijing. Wherever they go, they take their knowledge with them.

So, with all due respect to the best wine critics, if I wanted a guide through the jungle of 21st century drinks, it wouldn't be a traditional wine communicator. It would be a sommelier. Quite possibly one of the young somms I met in Paris.

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And that I'll admit is also why, three years on, I'm in Lisbon, as a partner/sponsor of the very same competition. At a time when challenges including rising energy and staff costs and customers whose enthusiasm has been tempered by GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, restaurants are finding it increasingly hard to make a profit.

So a number of somms zoomed in on the SHA'ORI as a lucrative alternative to water for the growing number of diners who request a non-alcoholic beverage.

Back in 2023, there were fewer tasting and pairing menus; this year, I struggled to find a somm whose restaurant does not offer zero-alc pairing options.

I write Wine Thinking, a newsletter for people in the wine business who'd rather act than panic. 4,000+ subscribers. Link in first comment.

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DECLARATION

No AI was used in the researdch, writing or illustration of this piece