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Latvian Raimonds Tomsons<\/strong> won the 2023 edition of the World’s Best Sommelier <\/strong>competition on Sunday, February 12<\/strong>. “I can’t believe it, I’m extremely happy,” he said on the stage of the final, which took place in front of the audience of the indoor stadium of La D\u00e9fense Arena<\/strong>. Raimonds Tomsons, on the other hand, had already been crowned the best sommelier in Europe and Africa in 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Danish sommelier Nina Jensen<\/strong> became the runner-up for the second consecutive edition of this triennial competition and the Chinese Reeze Choi<\/strong> finished in third place. The French Pascaline Lepeltier<\/strong> failed to reach the final and finished fourth. “New countries discovering wine have such a thirst to learn, to share, they have this incredible enthusiasm and they go very fast,” she commented after the semi-final.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The World’s Best Sommelier competition is without a doubt the most prestigious competition in the business<\/strong>. Held every three years<\/strong>, it offers the winner prestige and strong recognition in the industry. From February 7 to 12<\/strong>, the candidates took up the challenges posed by the jurors and had to complete three series of tests. These were first divided between theory<\/strong>, with highly specialized questions on wine, teas, sak\u00e9s, beers or brandies, and practical tests behind closed doors<\/strong>, including tastings, service, management and administration. Finally, the final tests were again practical, but in front of an audience<\/strong>, with tastings, service, as well as advice to customers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This international competition brought together the most talented and qualified representatives of the profession. This 2023 edition even presented a level of complexity rarely reached<\/strong>, as some members of the jury pointed out. Philippe Faure-Brac<\/strong>, president of the Union de la Sommellerie Fran\u00e7aise and winner of the competition in 1992<\/strong>, felt that having skills “in all the beverages” of the world was now essential. For him, consumers have “much more information than before” and the profiles of sommeliers “who can travel and train in different places” are diversifying.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the semi-final, the candidates had to identify five non-alcoholic drinks from around the world and imagine a vegan menu to accompany them, but also compose well-known cocktails with deliberately missing ingredients to which they had to find alternatives. The final was more focused on wine.<\/strong> The sommeliers had to identify them blind, associate a stone to a wine, wines to dishes, find the mistakes in a price list or guess which bottle was targeted from a series of images…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A competition at the top that sees the “emerging” wine producing countries also gradually make their place.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read also >Wine : Paris hosts the 2023 World\u2019s Best Sommelier competition<\/a><\/p>\nHigh level triennial competition<\/h2>\n