‘Best Somm’ contest comes to small screen

Frontera Films released its trailer of El Mejor Sommelier del Mundo TV series yesterday and as there’s no need for a spoiler alert given that most of us know the Swedish ending, it certainly looks extremely promising.

While nothing can quite replicate attending the A.S.I. Best Sommelier of the World 2016 Contest in Mendoza, Argentina, the three-minute intro certainly gets the adrenaline pumping and memory bank flowing.

It kicks off with Arvid Rosengren’s now infamous “a sommelier shouldn’t be a rock star” quote, and there are plenty of appearances from key competitors including Julie Dupouy, David Biraud and Paz Levinson as well as industry figures such as Andrés Rosberg and Charlie Arturaola.

Featuring a mixture of English and Spanish language, the English subtitles, however, need some work – Grenache is substituted with ‘carnage’, for example (!) – and there are some free-flowing typos in Spanish, but hey, you get the general picture.

Sixty-one sommelier contestants, 58 countries, 15 semi-finalists, three finalists, one winner. Looking forward to the the first episode.