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Humility and wine

In the world of sommeliers, the ones who know are reticent, polite to the point of being apologetic. And there are the ignorant others who think they can teach the world a thing or two.

Wine competitions are a great way to learn about wine. We vinos congregate to judge and assess wine and mark it up (or down) for its qualities (or the lack of them) and in the process, we interact with many other fellow professional aficionados, who often help us understand those wines which we may not know too well.

I say professional aficionados because merely drinking wine isn?t the criterion to be a judge. I must say with pride that I, along with Sanjay Menon remain the only two Indians to have judged the biggest of international wine competitions in the world.

So what have I learnt in my span of over half a decade of judging annually at various competitions? Well, for one thing, people know a lot about wine. I can be sure about this for I know nothing about wine and with each interaction I realise this more.

Recently, at the Decanter Asia Wine Awards in Hong Kong I realised just how critical this gap between the knowledgeable and the uneducated (like me) is. The ones who know are reticent, quiet to the point of mute, polite to the point of being apologetic. Sharp contrast to the plethora of Indians, I know, who get invited to judge a competition or two and think they can teach the world a thing or two. Maybe, me writing this article here, too, is a case in this point I am making about ignorance. I certainly hope not.

So what is the one lesson I have learnt consistently each time I get such an opportunity? The answer in one word is this: humility. I learn to be humble. Each time I put a glass of wine to nose, with each swirl and each sip, all I can do is to retract my ego utterly and entirely till I am sure that nobody can see it and all I am is a sponge, who will absorb everything thrown at me.

Steven Spurrier, the famous wine critic recently said, ?Please be careful while judging these wines.? He was implying that what we can write off with one instantaneous stroke of our pens wasn?t just a wine but a year?s worth of labour of an arduous winemaker.

This same thing was perhaps on my mind, maybe not in the same words though, when I was conducting India?s 5th Annual Sommelier Championship. Listening to each young talented wine advisor perform on a stage, to a gathered crowd of over 50 people, is truly a daunting task and it was marvellous to see how all six boys stepped up to showcase their talent and skill. And there I was, standing dumbfounded by their sheer confidence and pure passion for the art of sommelier.

Decanter is over, the Sommelier Championship is gone till the next year, but the humility imbibed remains. And it accumulates every year, but not to be stacked away in the lazier vestiges of my mind but instead to be kept on a mental mantelpiece, to be reminded of everyday, every minute every second. All in an effort to never allow myself to become an impeding force on my own learning curve.

Moral of the day is: Memento Mori. Remember that we all die, are left behind but in a memory. Make sure you make yours count but more importantly, make sure the memories live on in the minds of others.

The writer is a sommelier

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First published on: 23-09-2012 at 02:37 IST
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