by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
With Gérard, I shared four world championships as candidates, and obviously there were many intense moments. The most significant was at the 2010 World Championship in Chile, when on the morning of the final we met up for a relaxing walk together. Discussing how we...
by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
Gérard has always been special to me. We first met in the late eighties and our paths crossed a few time until I really got to know him when he won the Champagne Ruinart UK Sommelier of the Year in 1992. From that moment, I discovered his fighting spirit. He could not...
by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
I have lost my mentor, friend, confidant and spiritual father. I had known Gérard for 20 years. I think about what always impressed me, with Gégé, was the way he would tell or explain things. When I was preparing for competitions, he was always sacrificing his time to...
by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
The first time I was lucky enough to cross paths with Gérard Basset was during the 1989 Best Sommelier in the World competition in Paris, in 1989. A few months before the finals in Rio, in 1992, where I was going to represent France, he phoned me to ask if I could...
by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
When Gérard was nearing the end of his life, we were able to have a short discussion on the phone about his book and the publishers I had suggested. Poor Gérard was in a lot of pain then and found it quite difficult to speak, but he was most anxious to know about the...
by dev855asiv2 | 28 Feb 2019 | Gerard Basset
In January 2013, I was invited to discover the wines of British Columbia and Ontario, in Canada, and I was lucky enough to be with Gérard on this wine trip. I’d known him professionally, before, but not personally. After this trip, we became quite close and worked...
