‘Tasting Victory: The Life and Wines of the World’s Favourite Sommelier’ by Gerard Basset MW
Gerard Basset MW’s memoir Tasting Victory: The Life and Wines of the World’s Favourite Sommelier was released on 19 March and is available to purchase online. Tasting Victory charts his business successes: co-founding and selling the Hotel du Vin chain and founding, with his wife Nina, Hotel TerraVina. It recounts in detail just how he managed to earn his sequence of qualifications; Gerard is the first and only individual to hold the Master of Wine qualification simultaneously with that of Master Sommelier and MBA in Wine Business. But it is his pursuit of the Best Sommelier of the World award that forms the core of this book – and how, at his seventh attempt, the fifty-three-year-old Gerard Basset was acknowledged as the greatest sommelier of his generation.
Photo: Mirentxu Bellet