Consumers and sustainable wine, the sommelier’s view

Raymonds Thomsons, manager at Vincents, Riga’s most famous restaurant, is also European Sommelier of the year 2017. In this interview we discuss his views on sustainable wine, consumer trends, demands and a few other issues. Listen and enjoy.

Here’s some the things we talked about:

• What being a Sommelier means in Europe today.
• The wine and restaurant scene in Riga and how its evolving (appreciate there’s a niche audience for this bit).
• How the tastes of younger consumers are evolving, towards sustainability.
• Why all Sommeliers now must understand the nuances of biodynamic, organic and other ‘natural’ wines.
• Why so many winemakers have a problem with ‘natural wines’ and if they are being unreasonable.
• The emerging Latvian wine scene, and making wine 57 degrees north.
• And lots of other issues.