The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Milan is the venue that hosted the sixth Italian edition of the Ruinart Sommelier Challenge Italian Editionlast June 17th. A competition dedicated to the best sommeliers from all over Italy, a blind tasting of 4 wines in front of a jury led by the chef de cave of Ruinart Frédéric PanaïotisThe winner will have the opportunity to travel to the Champagne house, a four-day training course together with winners from editions around the world: visits to the vineyards, extraordinary tastings and unique food pairing experiences in Reims and Paris.
This year the undersigned was involved as a juror together with Simone Rovedafounder of Winerylovers and WSET sommelier, and Lorenzo Campoli, winner of the Ruinart Sommelier Challenge 2022 and founder of BereFacile.it. A jury chaired by Panaïotis who called us early to test the blind tasting first with all of us judges. A sort of test in which each of the jurors was a “temporary” competitor for 40 minutes: they had to analyze the four wines, strictly blind, filling in the same forms as the participants, expressing themselves in Italian and English. A card drawn up with a visual, olfactory and gustatory description to then arrive at conclusions related to the type of wine, grape variety, vintage and composition of any blends. An additional part of the sheet developed the aging potential of the sample under examination, the suggested serving temperature and the ideal suggestions for pairing it with the most suitable food or dishes.
The chef de cave tasted with us, in silence. Only after having filled out our forms did he open a discussion, initially discursive on the differences of the four samples and then entering into the typologies. A complex choice because Champagne was omitted and the four wines were: Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore di Cartizze Docg Dry “Toni” (Italy – Veneto), Cava Brut Reserva Heredad – Segura Viudas (Spain), Franciacorta Satèn Vintage Collection Ca’ Del Bosco (Italy – Lombardy) and a Pet Nat ‘A Chacun Sa Bulle’ Jean – Louis et Eric Kamm (France – Alsace).
The jury: from left to right Cinzia Benzi, Frédéric Panaïotis, Cristian Brancaleoni, Simone Roveda e Lorenzo Campoli
The Challenge saw 21 top sommeliers compete in exactly 40 minutes. The winner of the 2024 edition is Il sommelier Cristian Brancaleonisommelier and wine director of the starred restaurant Del Cambio in Turin. A young Piedmontese from Valenza Po (Alessandria) who began his first experiences in the hospitality sector on the French Riviera with different roles. Just when he lands in a wine bar from Menton understands that his love for wine is something magical. He studies the topic with passion and returns to Italy in 2018 for a season at the La Gallina restaurant in Gavi and immediately afterwards in Turin, in the baroque Piazza Carignano.
Cristian is also the wine director of the bistro/pastry shop Farmacia Del Cambio and the American bar Bar Cavour. «I am very happy with this victory and I can’t wait to get started – he concludes – To prepare for the competition I continued with my study and tasting program that I have been carrying out for years. Having won the Aspi best sommelier in Italy competition in 2022, I always try to stay up to date and trained for future selections for international competitions. 40 minutes can be a bit tight if you are not used to tasting with a precise timing. In my case, I tasted the first wine and, subsequently, I gave myself the times for the next three tastings, dosing the minutes available as best as possible. Without a doubt, the most difficult part remains identifying the wine, grape variety, vintage. The wine panorama is increasingly broad and it is not easy to identify everything exactly».
The proclamation took place at the end of a lunch at the Horto restaurant in Norbert Niederkoflerled by the young chef Alberto Toe, which allowed us to taste dishes designed to respect the “philosophy of ethical time” that is, valorizing raw materials from Lombardy gardens as well as farmhouses, dairies and farmers no more than an hour away from Milan. Dishes paired with the Cuvée Blanc de Blancs, Dom Ruinart 2010, the brand new Ruinart Blanc Singulier Edition19in addition to the comparative tasting with the 18th edition.
Ruinart Blanc Singulier Edition19
A champagne about which the chef de cave revealed: «It is a blended and non-vintage product so it cannot be produced every year. Special conditions are necessary and I am sure that 2020 will happen while 2021 will not. The same goes for 2022 which is a similar vintage to 2018 while 2023 will not be released. I’m not yet able to make predictions about 2024 because I have to wait for the harvest.”
Panaïotis is a great professional, with an encyclopedic preparation on wine, a polyglot with a great love for the Italian language and our country. In the competition he conveyed an incontrovertible message: “Wine is an element that must be studied with scientific bases, with passion and applying a method to memorize as many elements as possible of that grape variety or style”. A memorable day for the participants, the judges and without a doubt for the winner, who will go to Champagne in the fall.
