Paolo Basso – Best Sommelier in the World 2013

28 Feb 2019

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 had approached the exam, I realized that I had probably missed a full page of the questionnaire. I immediately fell apart! At that moment, I thought that everything was lost, but he comforted me by saying that I should take all the tests into account. Although I was his competitor, he found the words to reassure me, with deep sincerity. I was very impressed by his altruism, a few hours before the final on which he had been working hard for three years, and for which he had high expectations. The rest is history.