UDSF Nîmes
After several months of preparation and contribution by the members, Nîmes hosted this first appointment aiming at evoking the future of the professional association but also a profession. A great brainstorming that should help strengthen the union of thousand members.
In November 2012, Michel Hermet, freshly reelected for a second term at the presidency of the Union of French Sommellerie, challenged the members of the association: organize the UDSF summit.
And they managed to! Some hundred participants met in Nîmes. Sommeliers, sponsors, wine growers, representatives of interprofessions and renowned chefs. “The aim is to professionalize the UDSF to make it become an inevitable player and the best ambassador of the French wines and the related culture”, Michel Hermet explained.
The meeting focused on five themes determined after preliminary brainstorming. The administrative management of UDSF marked by the dissipation of the efforts within the 21 regions and relying on the only voluntary work enabled to think about the division of France into 5 main regions. This formula would help increase the visibility of the Union while allowing the regions that would compose it to keep their autonomy for their usual activities. “We might gain credibility with the institutions, especially the ministries we depend on, the private partners and the interprofessions”, underlined Olivier Bompas, reporter of this issue.
Michel Hermet, Fabrice Sommier, Philippe Faure-Brac, Serge Dubs et Jean-Luc Jamrozik, vont maintenant tirer les enseignements de ces états généraux et les traduire en actes.
As for Philippe Faure-Brac he stated the “the necessity to professionalize the association as voluntary work has its limits” and to open the Union to all the professionals who are not member yet. “We have to convince them to join the association as from the beginning of their training by being more present at their side.”
The following themes concerning the organization within the regions and the place of the sommellerie in the restaurants often dealt with the same problems, the most important being visibility. Whereas some of the 21 entities of UDSF fear to disappear with the future reorganization, the restaurant sommelier lacks recognition. Yet, as Chef Jérôme Nutile (MOF and owner of the restaurant Julien Nutile in Nîmes) reckoned, “having a sommelier in a restaurant is necessary. He can teach the other members of the team to present and serve wine, but he has to be versatile and able to help serving.”
To Michel Widehem, reporter of this question, two main subjects stood out of the former debates: the gastronomic guides could mention the presence of a sommelier thanks to a logo, and the association could also open to butlers and front-of-house staff to help them get the basic knowlegde of wine service.
2012 Best Sommelier of France Romain Iltis' proposition was unanimously praised: “To impose a special day for the sommellerie during the gastronomy week and encourage to discover the profession through a food and wine pairing with a bouchée and a bit of wine offered to each customer.”
Make sommellerie become a way of high achievement and turn the sommelier into the first ambassador of the vineyards and the partners were the two last issues dealt with. The second one seemed so obvious that it did not generate long debates. But the first provided input for real discussions. David Biraud, 2002 Best Sommelier of France and MOF, was the reporter and he mainly evoked education and expectations of the youngs. “Trips in the vineyard, meeting unapproachable wine growers, the help of a professional patron to guide them, sharing the experience of title-winning sommeliers are among their priorities.”
Christophe Martin, in the name of the sommelier trainers, asked for the upgrade of the complementary mention from the level Vocational certificate [CAP] to the level Baccalauréat. Franck Cognet, National Education inspector, supported his position, talking about “the necessity to clarify the question of the diploma level according to the specifications of the training.”
Enough to provide input for further debates and concrete actions, once the huge amount of informations is processed by the members of a Union that is the best defender of the profession and who wants to remain such while becoming even stronger.
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