All at the North American Sommelier Association would like to put our hands together in applause to our Vice President, Irina Ponomarenko !
On June 12, 2019, Irina Ponomarenko became the winner of the Languedoc Wines National Sommelier Challenge. In September, along with the Challenge winners from San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, she will take a trip to Languedoc to further her knowledge of the region, and to become a Languedoc Wine Ambassador !
Key element to Irina’s victory over the participant Sommeliers was the patented wine-tasting method that the North American Sommelier Association adopts. The ‘analytical-descriptive technical wine tasting method’ was developed in Europe in the 1930’s and tweaked / fine-tuned by the Italian Sommelier Association through almost a century of evolution. In 2012, sister school NASA (North American Sommelier Association) translated and updated the methodology for the current United States wine market. Based on “EVALUATION” and “DESCRIPTION” of a wine through all its sensorial characteristics and deducting a wine’s state of evolution, typicality and overall quality level, the method stands as one of the most comprehensive wine-dissecting tools, designed and aimed at the complete understanding and communication of a specific bottle’s DNA (to learn more take a look at our Silver-Pin Certified Sommelier course).
