The regimen of a competition sommelier

Credit: Alex Allardyce

On October 19, 2021, Wines of British Columbia and CAPS will work in tandem to host “Canada’s Top Sommelier” competition, which has attracted competitors from all over the country.

I had the chance to speak with one of the competitors, sommelier Alex Allardyce, leading up to the event on how she preps for competitions, why she feels it’s helpful to her career, and future plans for competing on a larger scale.

LM: Why compete ? What benefit do you feel it brings you?

AA: Put simply, I compete because I love what I do. When I love something, I want to excel at it. Carrying the title "Best Sommelier of Manitoba 2021", to me, is a testament to how much I love what I do, and our industry, and I am proud of that. I find other people recognize that as well. I am relatively young, and new to the industry and I find competing is a way to prove myself. I've already seen the benefits of this.

LM: Another sommelier once described the process of competing as "the pursuit of mastery, similar to the regimen of an Olympian." Would you agree? Why or why not?

AA: I would absolutely agree. I've often used that analogy myself, not just about competing, but even just in regards to being a working Sommelier. People outside of the industry have asked me how Sommelier's become so good at tasting. I've replied, it's like being good at a sport, practice makes perfect. Yes, there is some inherent talent involved, but mostly, the amount of work you put into it, is what you're going to get out of it. If you want to be a star soccer player, you would be out on the field practicing every day. If you want to be a star taster- you taste every day. I've always seen our profession as being very similar to those of athletes.

LM: What's your opinion on the state of the Canadian industry? What aspects of it would you improve first ?

AA: There are two things that come to mind right away when I think of the Canadian wine industry. One, is that in Manitoba it can actually be extremely expensive to import wine from Niagara and the Okanagan, even more so than importing wine from Italy and France. For this reason, we actually have a pretty poor representation of Canadian wines in our market, and I think that's really too bad. I'd love to see us be able to support our own wine industry, but with the way our provincial monopoly has the pricing structured right now, I don't see that happening any time soon.

The second thing that comes to mind is that I feel like, in my own very humble opinion, that the Canadian wine industry lacks identity. That being said, we are a very young wine growing country relative to other areas in the world, so I look forward to seeing how our industry will grow and change.

LM: What's your region of specialization?

AA: I've never thought of myself as having a region of specialization, but I suppose that I do. I work with a team of Sommelier's at The Manitoba Club, and we are all very capable of chatting about any kind of wine, from anywhere, with a table. However, I guess there are times when a table asks for a recommendation on a specific style/region, and they'll send me over specifically, as I've done with my colleagues as well. If I know that one of my fellow Somms can speak more to the vintages of Barolo than I can, I will definitely send them over instead, ensuring that the guest is getting the most out of their experience.

Probably the two areas that I would be called upon for, would be Port and Natural Wine. I've always loved Port, and fortified wine in general, it's always been an area of interest for me (might be my British roots). However, I recently received top marks in the qualifying exam to travel to Porto to represent Manitoba in the quarter finals for the Master of Port Canada 2022. So now, more than ever I would definitely say that Port is one of my areas of expertise.

Natural wine I would also consider to be a style that I specialize in, simply because I drink a lot of it! Back when I was studying to become certified as a Sommelier, I was practicing my deductive tasting constantly, and there were some days that I just wanted to have a glass of wine, turn my brain off, and not analyze it. That's when I started drinking natural wine. You can't put natural wine on a grid even if you tried, and I loved that. Since then, the whole natural wine "movement" has really become a passion of mine, a sentiment that is not shared by many of my colleagues, so I am often called over if a guest is asking for a natural wine recommendation. I am always more than happy to oblige.

LM: How do you prepare for competitions ? Any best practices to share?

AA: I'd love to say that I wake up at 6am every day for a month before a competition and study for 3 hours before I start my day, but that's not the truth. I always practice my blind tasting at least once a week, even when I'm not in competition mode, because for me it's an important skill to keep up on. Otherwise, I'm actually pretty relaxed with my competition preparations. I have an academic background, so the theory for me is the easy part to prepare for. I have study guides, notes, maps etc that I've prepared and always look back on leading up to a competition. It's always the practical part of any competition that makes me more nervous. I've found the best way to combat that is just chill out. Day of, I have a chat with myself, and ask myself why I'm doing this. The answer is always, because I love it. If I love it, then it doesn't matter the outcome, I've already won. Reminding myself of that always helps, and has become an important part of my pre-competition routine. That, and a cold beer before, to take the edge off. Kidding.

LM: Tell me about the last competition you won.

AA: The most recent competition I won was the Best Sommelier of Manitoba 2021. The competition had been postponed several times due to COVID-19 so it was very surreal to finally have it take place.

It was a two day competition. Day one was theory, which involved a multiple choice and short answer exam, wine list corrections, and then a written blind tasting component.

Day two was the practical part of the competition, hosted in front of a live audience. Each of us competitors drew names out of a hat to decide the order that we would compete. It was about an hour long, and involved a cocktail component, wine and food pairing, service, a verbal theory component, and then a verbal tasting.

Each day was worth 100 marks, and the person with the best score out of 200 was crowned winner. I felt fairly good after day one, even though it was hands down the hardest exam I'd ever written. But still, I knew that coming into day two, it was anyone's game. I was lucky enough to have my name drawn first, so I didn't have to sit in the isolation room (as I was calling it) for hours waiting for the others to compete before it was my turn.

I felt good about my performance, overall. I was proud of my wine and food pairings, a flight of wines all made by female winemakers. I knew I'd made a killer Old Fashioned for the judges. But as it often goes with competitions, there were a couple elements in the service portion that didn't go my way, and nerves got the better of me during the verbal theory portion. I had no idea how I measured up with the others, because I wasn't allowed to watch them compete after me.

After we were all done, they called us back into the room and announced the winner. We had the competition taped and I'm glad we did, because watching it back, I can see my own reaction, because I don't even remember them saying my name. It's funny how things like that work. This competition meant a lot to me. Winning would mean that all of my hard work had paid off, it shows how much I care about what I do, how much I love it, and how hard I strive to excel at it. I wanted to win and carry on to compete at Nationals, alongside the best in the industry, and learn from them.

I saw so many emotions flood across my face when they said my name. I'm not sure when it will sink in that I won. Maybe when I get on the plane tomorrow to go compete for the National title in Penticton. Or maybe it will always just feel surreal. But I will always be proud of what I accomplished that day.

LM: Do you hope to go on to compete at larger scale events in the future? What are your plans?

AA: I would love to compete at larger scale events in the future. We will see what happens this week when I compete for the title Best Sommelier of Canada.

As a former academic, I am always looking to obtain the next certification, apply for the next scholarship, join the next seminar, or compete in the next competition. I never want to stop learning, growing, and pushing myself to achieve.

Follow Alex here. Watch her compete this week in Penticton for the title of Canada’s Top Sommelier here.