Quebec sommelier Hugo Duchesne was very close to the goal: he came second in the Best Sommelier of the Americas competition last week in Chile.
Posted at 1:40 p.m.
It was in Santiago that the 2022 edition of this competition took place, where Hugo Duchesne flew to represent Canada, from February 16 to 19. The one who was crowned Quebec’s Best Sommelier in 2020 was hoping to get his hands on this title coveted by some twenty candidates, but it was Argentinian sommelier Valeria Gamper who won the honors. The Quebecer finished on the second step of the podium, the silver medal around his neck.
Disappointed ? “I was going there to win, that’s for sure, but what I learned there is immeasurable. I made an international final, it got into my body! I felt like I was giving a good showI gave everything on the traineeship “, he launches at the end of the line.
Winning this competition would have allowed him to become the second Quebec representative in the Best Sommelier of the World competition, which will take place in Paris in 2023. Canada will be represented there by Pier-Alexis Soulière, who won the title of Best Sommelier of Canada 2021.
The sting of competitions
When he was younger, Hugo Duchesne devoted himself to a teaching career in literature. After his master’s degree at McGill, he intended to go to France to complete his doctorate, but he decided to take a little break… and a sommelier course.
It was while he was employed at the Hamel cheese dairy, at the Jean-Talon Market, that he was introduced to the world of wine, he says. “The owner was an enthusiast, a wine collector. He really instilled in me the simplicity, the pleasure, the modesty of discovering wine. Wine has become an echo of literature for me, of this desire to learn, of language. I had always had this secret desire to leave literature for the sommelier, and I allowed myself that at a certain point. »
A sommelier teacher at the ITHQ until very recently, Hugo Duchesne got hooked on competitions by mentoring his students in various competitions, including sommelier Carl Villeneune Lepage in the Best Sommelier of the Americas competition in 2018, then to Best Sommelier in the World in 2019, in Belgium.
It kind of happened as an accident. I’m not a pageant guy, it wasn’t a string that thrilled me, until I taught. It was in Belgium that I realized that I was in the wrong chair; I didn’t want to be a coach, but a candidate!
Hugo Duchesne, sommelier
From that moment, Mr. Duchesne set himself the goal of participating in the provincial competition, which he won. Although he did not repeat the feat in the Canadian competition last October, he was selected to participate in the Americas, where Canada could send two candidates.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Hugo Duchesne, in the wine cellar of Restaurant h3.
In the meantime, the professor has made the difficult decision to leave his position at the ITHQ and accept that of director of customer experience and operations for the group which notably owns Le Coureur des bois, in Beloeil, and Restaurant h3, in the center -town. He had already served for six years as a part-time sommelier for these places recognized for their wine programs.
For several months, the father of three children has therefore devoted himself intensively to the preparation for the Canadian competition, then that of the Americas. How do you study, precisely, for competitions of this magnitude?
“I can easily put in three to four hours of study in the morning, then get to work, where I have wines made, blind spirits, decanting situations, decanting, sparkling wine service , magnums, on tables of 16, of 8… All the staging of competitions, on a daily basis, we do in the restaurant”, he explains.
The adventure is far from over for the sommelier. He plans to dive back into his studies next week, with a view to obtaining his Master Sommelier certification – only two people can boast of having this diploma in Quebec, he tells us. He also has his eyes set on the next Best Sommelier of Canada competition, which will take place in 2023; his title of Best Quebec Sommelier guarantees him participation.
“Competitions are not an end in themselves. I have nothing to prove, I do it, because it makes me a better professional, more hospitable, more human. Pushing the competitive side to its climax in competitions uninhibits the profession and means that once in the dining room, only the simple pleasure of wine remains. »