Raise your glass to St. Louis sommelier Andrey Ivanov, who took third place in the Guild of Sommeliers TopSomm competition held April 19 in Sonoma, California.
“It was great, but it was a tough competition,” Ivanov said. “It was a veritable who’s-who of the somm world. If you’re going to lose, you want to lose in this group of somms.”
Ivanov, who most recently served as wine director at Elaia and Olio, reached the national competition after successfully scoring in the top eight in an online preliminary competition and winning the regional finals in Chicago on March 8. At the national competition, eight sommeliers, six regional winners and two wild cards, participated in the national, three-part competition, which included a theory section, a practical skills section and a blind tasting.
“It was brutal,” he said. “The scenario presented was of two tables of customers, and one of the tables would not let you leave. They kept asking irrelevant questions. I finally hijacked my maitre d’ to talk to the table and got away long enough to serve the other table their Champagne just in time. It was a fun competition.”
He will compete next in the 2015 Chaine des Rotisseurs’ Young Sommeliers Competition in Santa Barbara, California on May 14 and 15 before heading to Aspen, Colorado to sit for the service and tasting portion of the Master Sommelier exam.
After his exam, Ivanov will return to St. Louis, where he and former Taste executive chef Matt Daughaday plan to open Reed’s American Table in June.
-photo by Ashley Gieseking
This article appears in April 2015.