Constance Festival Culinary 2023

4/17/23, 2:59 PM

Jérôme Faure – the Indian Ocean's Mr Motivator | JancisRobinson.com

hospitality, the opportunities on the island are pretty much limited to IT (typically for young men) or commerce and fnance. Sommeliers at all levels are given around four hours of training a week – in practical service as well as in wine theory – both on the foor and under the auspices of the Constance Academy. There’s usually a quiz after any training session to see how much has been learned. A lot of the training in wine knowledge and tasting is provided by visiting winegrowers, doubtless lured by the island paradise as much as by the chance to pass on their knowledge and promote their wines during these masterclasses. But Faure, Julie and Ramasawmy are all involved. I talked to a some of the new recruits at one of these training sessions. Ashley Soberun, 20, my neighbour during the masterclass, had started as a trainee three days earlier. He doesn’t drink wine and wine is not drunk at home. The training was, unsurprisingly, over his head and he seemed rather nervous about tasting the wines. But he listened carefully and made notes. I asked Julie how they help these young recruits when it comes to tasting. ‘We start with the sweet wines’, he said. Just as Faure is admired for his heart as much as for his wine knowledge and tasting skills, new recruits, Kumar tells me, are assessed on their attitude and motivation not on their wine knowledge. It’s much harder to shape character and inspire passion than it is to communicate information. Also in the masterclass was Clayton Hollingsworth, who started work as a ‘commis sommelier level 1’ in 2009 and is now assistant sommelier (that may not sound like a big step up but there are three levels of commis sommelier). He describes Faure as ‘magnifque’ and told me that as well as the regular training, he has had he opportunity to spend a week in South Africa visiting producers. Another genuinely devoted acolyte. Faure ‘has to travel’, says Sarah, ‘because wine is in constant evolution’, but he always shares those trips. Every year he visits France, South Africa and one other European country (Austria this year), with less frequent buying trips to New Zealand and Australia. He always takes sommeliers at various levels with him because he believes relationships with producers are key, especially when you are importing directly from them. Standing in the jam-packed and very cool cellar, boxes of the fnest South African wines waiting in line, Faure explained to me his distinctive approach to buying and selling. First, the wine list is always deep in classics. For example, he gets an annual allocation of 60 bottles each of Rousseau’s Chambertin and Clos de Bèze. He doesn’t manage to sell them all in the Attentive students during the winemaker-led masterclass, Soberun on the far left

https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/jerome-faure-indian-oceans-mr-motivator

4/5