Registration Opens
1 May 2024
Judging
Date
24 & 25 March 2025
Winners Announcement
22 April 2025
My name is Alessandro Vigliero I'm from Naples South Italy.
I live in London since 2012 where I started my career in hospitality as Runner in a really famous Italian restaurant in South Kensington.
In these ten years, I had the chance and the pleasure to cover many roles and to work with amazing teams in the most exclusive venue in London.
Image Source: Alessandro Vigliero
The reason why I wanted to become a Sommelier is that working in hospitality for more than a decade I have always been fascinated by the knowledge and complexity that you have to gain to be a good Sommelier.
Here at Bentley’s, we sell a lot of wine, so one of the key aspects that I need to prioritize is consistency. We get a lot of people coming in and hoping to try the same thing they had last time – whenever that may be – and they expect it to be as of high quality as ever. It is also important to me that I get to know both the producers and their reps personally, and that we get along. We are essentially colleagues after all!
I think today social media are good resources to stay updated. And of course to go out and dine in different concepts.
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Trying to understand what style of wine is looking for
Knowledge, knowing how to read his guest, patience, customer service
I will try just to show him our method of service and the way we work.
I think a good method to grow wine sales is to have well and prepared Sommeliers with strong customer service.
Image: Group sommelier tasting in London this morning with Mong Meadow Ranch from Napa Valley California; Source: Linkedin
As Senior Sommelier I'm not in charge of profits yet. This is a method that a head Sommelier use.
But I guess to grow profits you have to have a strategy for buying.
Studying
Create connections with guests, sharing passion and of course, tasting some of the best wines in the world.
Being attentive, making sure to deliver an experience, and attention to detail.
Master Chef
A few months ago I had a table o 3 guests that asked me for help ordering wine. They asked which vintages of Petrus I had in stock or If was able to recommend something special for them.
Their point was " I want to order Petrus cause with Petrus I'm never disappointed".
I had 1 bottle of Le Pin 2009 in stock which I recommend as I believe that 2009/2010 Pomerol is one of the best vintages.
So he answered, " Nice I would love to try it. We will drink that the two of us, for my other friend of mine, just bring him a glass of Rioja".
To not be long two of the drank Le Pin and one of them had 4/5 glasses of Rioja
When at the end I bring them the bill they give the bill to pay to the guy that was drinking Rioja which he didn't understand what kind of wine his friends were drinking. So was obvious they were pranking him
Header Image Source: Instagram
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