The finals of the National contest for the Best Sommelier of Serbia in 2012 started at 16h on 25th October, 2012 in Tulip Inn-Putnik Hotel in New BelgradeThis contest is held in accordance with ASI  (International Sommeliers' Association) rules, since SERSA (Serbian Sommeliers' Association) is a full member of this organization. Three contestants took part in this year's finals: Mr. Minja Petrović, Ms. Mina Majstorović and Mr. Srđan Janjić.

Let us first introduce the finalists:

MINJA PETROVIĆ – born in 1984,residing in Lazarevac, earned the sommelier's title in 2007. Passed Advance Sommelier Level in 2011. Second-ranked at the national contest for the Best sommelier of Serbia in 2010. Worked as a sommelier at cruiser Carnival Dream, Restaurant 27, Langouste, Hyatt, Vila Breg.

MINA MAJSTOROVIĆ – born in 1984, residing in Belgrade, earned the sommelier's title in 2010. Currently employed as sommelier at Square Nine Hotel. In 2010, she won the first prize at the wine serving contest organized by the European Association of Tourism & Hotel Management Schools in Lisboa (Portugal).

SRĐAN JANJIĆ – born in 1967 in Sarajevo. Residing in Canada, earned the sommelier's title in 2003. Currently employed in Treasury Wine Estates.

Each finals are supposed to be exciting, packed with uncertainty who would win and fair, so that the best finalist truly wins. And you are probably wondering what the sommelier's contest looks like…

Each finalist should demonstrate his/her skills and knowledge in 7 practical exercises. 4 guests seated at a table simulate a restaurant and throughout the contest, sommeliers demonstrate their skills directly facing the guests. In the first exercise, a sommelier shows his attitude towards the guests, introduces himself and the restaurant and serves water. All three finalists made a convincing performance in this exercise, thus announcing that the contest will be packed with uncertainty until the very end.



Then another extremely exciting exercise followed – serving sparkling wine within 4 minutes' deadline. The goal is to open a bottle of sparkling wine and pour wine into 11 flute glasses so that each glass contains the same quantity of wine, whereas the bottle remains empty (subsequent filling of glasses is not allowed). Finalist Minja Petrović simply excelled with his accuracy and speed in this exercise.



Afterwards, the exercise of decanting red wine followed. The finalists open a bottle and decant it in the vicinity of candle light in order to verify presence of sediment, and then serve the guests.

The most exciting and surely the most attractive part of the contest is blind testing of wine and distilled spirits. Finalists are expected to analize one white and one red wine, describe them, determine variety and vintage, and then pair with some dish. It seems that finalists found it more difficult to identify distilled spirits in the same manner. Six glasses, 2 of which were black non-transparent ones, were filled with 6 different distilled spirits and finalists should identify the type of distilled spirits, where more points are earned for identification of spirits in black glasses.

The next task was to find errors in the wine list. For example, one of the wines in the sample wine list was: Temet Winery - Three Moravas (Smederevka, Tamjanika, Morava) - Pocerina region, Serbia. Of course, wine lovers would immediately notice that Temet Winery doesn't come from Pocerina region, but from Šumadija-Great Morava region.

Wine and food pairing didn't represent a difficult task for the finalists. And this part of contest surely had its practical benefit, since the present audience could hear some great tips regarding wine and food pairing. The contest came to a close with the exercise of choosing and serving cigars to guests.

Finally, the jury came up with a surprise question for the finalists. Since two members of the jury were coming from Cyprus, the question for all finalists was what Commandaria was (a dessert wine speciality of Cyprus), in how many villages it was produced (14) and which grape varieties were used in its production (Mavro and Xynisteri).

The jury consisted of both local and international experts. Let us mention that President of the Jury was George Kassianos from Cyprus, the President of the Cypriot Sommeliers' Association, accompanied with Vassos Manoli, the best sommelier of Cyprus in 2012, and Vladimir Capelik, a wine expert from Moscow and President of the Independent Wine Club. The local jury members were led by Miloš Radojčin, President of the Serbian Sommeliers' Association.

MINJA PETROVIĆ won the official title of the best Serbian sommelier in 2012. Đurđa Katić, a holder of the Best Serbian Sommelier title in 2010, handed him  a gift cheque in the amount of 120.000 dinars. Minja Petrović will hold this title in the coming two years, and he will also represent our country at the European sommelier competition in San Marino and the World sommelier competition 2013 in Tokyo.

Sponsors of this competition were Aqua Viva and Macedonian winery Tikveš. Let's hope that in the years to come, there will be some Serbian winery as well which will show goodwill and have funds to support this most important competition of sommeliers in our country.



 

 

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