ASI: A Sommelier's Insight

As part of a series of podcasts titled "The Road to Lisbon" featuring interviews with past ASI Contest Best Sommelier of the World winners, we interview Raimonds Tomsons about what it takes to become a champion.
Raimonds Tomsons is the reigning winner ASI Best Sommelier of the World. His victory came in front of thousands of people watching live and tens of thousands watching online at the 2023 ASI Contest Best Sommelier of the ...

In this episode of A Sommelier’s Insight we continue a series titled the Road to Lisbon with Paolo Basso, ASI Best Sommelier of the World 2013.
After 18 years of competition, winning the title brought Paolo both joy and a sense of liberation. It also marked the beginning of a new chapter and a broader perspective on what the profession needs to become.
In this episode, The Evolving Role of the Sommelier, we explore why ...

Where does sake belong in the world of sommellerie?
The answer is simple: at its very heart. In this episode of A Sommelier’s Insight, we speak with Hiromi Iuchi of the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association about sake’s growing presence in restaurants around the world.
Instead of focusing on the technical aspects of Sake, this conversation delves more into how sake can work in the restaurant environment, challe...

Over the past decade, the role of the sommelier has evolved dramatically. While competitions continue to celebrate the very best, one question has become increasingly important: How do we ensure the next generation has the opportunity to get there? That's the question at the heart of this podcast.
Piotr Kamecki, Vice-President of Europe for the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale (ASI) is one of the driving forces behin...

For centuries, Orvieto was one of Italy's most revered white wines, renowned for both its botrytis-affected sweet wines and its table wines. During the second half of the 20th century, the region's popularity skyrocketed as Orvieto became a staple on the wine lists of an ever growing number of Italian trattorias appearing around the world.
Over time, Orvieto developed a reputation as an approachable and food-friendly wine style....

For decades, Vinho Verde was viewed through a remarkably simple lens. Fresh, light, affordable and often with a touch of spritz, it became one of Portugal's most recognisable wine exports and a favourite introduction to Portuguese wine for consumers around the world.
Today, however, the region is telling a far more complex and compelling story. Stretching across Portugal's verdant northwest, Vinho Verde has undergone a remarkabl...

For centuries, Orvieto was one of Italy's most revered white wines, renowned for both its botrytis-affected sweet wines and its table wines. During the second half of the 20th century, the region's popularity skyrocketed as Orvieto became a staple on the wine lists of an ever growing number of Italian trattorias appearing around the world.

Over time, Orvieto developed a reputation as an approachable and food-friendly wine style. How...

Few figures have shaped the conversation around natural wine as profoundly as Pascaline Lepeltier. A leading contender for this year's ASI Contest Best Sommelier of the World Lisbon, Meilleur Ouvrier de France, Best Sommelier of France (2018), acclaimed author, restaurant and winery co-owner, educator and one of the most influential voices in contemporary wine, Pascaline has spent decades exploring the intersection of farming, terr...

India has long been viewed as an emerging market in the world of wine, but today it is becoming something far more compelling: a proving ground for a new generation of sommeliers shaping their own identity. In this episode of A Sommelier’s Insight, we sit down with Amrita Singh to explore the upward trajectory of sommellerie in India. From the challenges of building wine culture in a historically spirits driven market to the ...

There are moments in a wine career that quietly reshape everything, not through spectacle, but through a gradual realisation of what wine can truly represent. For Master Sommelier Jane Lopes, that moment opened the door to a career defined not just by technical mastery, but by a deeper exploration of wine as a meeting point of intellect, sensory experience, and human connection. In this conversation, we move beyond the surface of A...

Mark welcomes listeners to another episode of A Sommelier’s Insight, where wine is more than what’s in the glass. It’s memory, culture and connection.
In this episode, Mark sits down with Howard Hsia, President of the Taiwan Sommelier Association, to explore one of the most fascinating and often overlooked wine cultures in the world: Taiwan.
Long known as a crossroads of trade, cuisine and culture, Taiwan ha...

There is a tendency, even among professionals, to treat glassware as a constant, an invisible tool in service of something else. Yet, as Leopold Grupp, CEO of Stölzle Lausitz, makes clear in this episode of A Sommelier's Insight, the glass is anything but passive. It is, in his words, “a sensoric object… a tool for professionals… where you can amplify certain tastes and you can reduce others.”At the centre...

Wine education is in the midst of a quiet, but profound, transformation. Once centred around a small number of traditional institutions and geographic hubs, learning today is increasingly global, digital, and shaped as much by access and communication as by encyclopaedic knowledge. Excellence in the beverage professions is no longer defined solely by what we know, but by how we interpret, translate, and share that knowledge with ot...

In this episode of A Sommelier's Insight, we sit down with Harry Symington Symington Family Estates and Maria Boumpa, reigning UK Sommelier of the Year, to explore the vision behind, and the outcomes of Symington Family Estates' immersive learning programme known as Douro Somm Camp.  
For generations, the Symington family has been at the heart of Portugal’s wine story, stewarding iconic Port h...

Welcome back to A Sommelier’s Insight, a podcast produced for the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale in conjunction with ASI Magazine.

In a profession built on curiosity, discipline and constant evolution, there are few qualities more essential than a genuine passion for knowledge. Not just the accumulation of facts, but the desire to understand, to question and to connect ideas across cultures, regions and disciplin...

In the world of wine, few achievements carry the weight and mystique of Master Sommelier and Master of Wine. They are often seen as the twin peaks of the profession, each demanding a different kind of mastery: one rooted in service, precision and performance under pressure; the other in deep academic rigour, analysis and global perspective. Very few have stood atop both.
Doug Frost is one of just five of them. 
In t...