“"Tasting is learning to listen to the world with all your senses."”
Fabrice Sommier
Fabrice Sommier
A man of taste and transmission, Fabrice Sommier embodies the excellence of French sommellerie. Ie began his training in the dining room in Mézières-en-Brenne before becoming passionate about the world of wine under the sommelier Michel Desroches. From Tours to Paris, he refines his craft in the company of great houses: Jean Bardet, Bernard Robin, Philippe Groult, Bernard Loiseau, and then Georges Blanc, where he will remain for more than twenty years and climb all the ranks to the direction of the group.
In 2007, he obtained the prestigious title of "Best Worker of France Sommellerie", then became "Master of Port" in 2010 and won the ASI Gold Level certification at the world's top level. His journey is that of a craftsman of taste turned strategist: he combines technical rigor, curiosity about the world, and the pleasure of sharing. Abroad, Fabrice Sommier stands out as the only European double laureate of the "Habano" Sommelier competition in Cuba (2013 and 2014). His mastery of cigar and beverage pairings illustrates his openness to the flavors of the world and his taste for the total sensory experience.
In 2021, he founded the "Wine School by Fabrice Sommier" in Mâcon: a lively place where enthusiasts, businesses, and passionate individuals come to explore wine, spirits, and the art of service through workshops, WSET training, and seminars. This project seals his vocation: to pass it on.
Since April 2023, he has presided over the "Union de la Sommellerie Française" (UDSF), where he works for the modernization of the profession, the diversity of talents, and the place of wine in society. In January 2025, he was elected "Personality of the Year" by the Revue du Vin de France, alongside Philippe Faure-Brac. A TEDx speaker (Belfort 2022), a columnist, and a recognized educator, Fabrice Sommier shares with enthusiasm a philosophy: taste is a school of life, a path of humility and pleasure à la française.
The Taste, universal language!
- From the first sip of wine to the perfect pairing, Fabrice Sommier immerses us in the magic of taste as a common language. He explains how tasting, far from being reserved for connoisseurs, can become a tool for communication, education, and cultural openness.
- Through anecdotes and sensory experiences, he will help you discover the five senses of a sommelier: sight, smell, palate, but also listening and intuition. Every mouth becomes a country, every glass a story.
- His approach reconciles professional rigor with immediate pleasure: to understand taste is to understand humanity. In a fast-paced world, he invites us to slow down to feel, to taste to think.
- This interactive and sensory conference offers the audience an experience: the joy of rediscovering taste as a universal language of life.
Transmission and excellence: lessons from a Meilleur Ouvrier de France!
- What is excellence? Fabrice Sommier answers this with his story: that of an apprentice who became Meilleur Ouvrier de France thanks to rigor, humility, and the joy of service.
- In this conference, he reveals the values that make for an exceptional journey: joyful discipline, teamwork, stress management, and attention to detail that makes the difference.
- He illustrates how these principles, stemming from gastronomy, apply to all sectors: management, innovation, training. For sommellerie is the art of making others better.
- A vibrant testimony that inspires the desire to serve, to educate oneself, and to pass on in turn.
Food and wine pairing: the art of harmony!
- For Fabrice Sommier, the pairing of food and wine is not a fixed formula, but a meeting between sensory universes. He deciphers the mechanisms of taste balance and shows how intuition and listening can guide creation.
- From concrete examples, he stages the dialogue between sweet and savory, acid and fat, texture and temperature. Each pairing becomes a conversation, each meal a symphony.
- This conference also reveals the role of the sommelier as the conductor of culinary emotion, able to enhance a customer experience or a team relationship.
- Participants leave with a new key: that of harmony as a value of leadership and creation.
The wine of tomorrow: climate, values, and innovation!
- In the face of climate changes and new uses, the world of wine is entering a new era of transformation. Fabrice Sommier notices and observes these evolutions on a daily basis: sustainability, responsible consumption, the rise of premium non-alcoholic beverages.
- He analyzes the market trends and the responses from professionals: reinvention of service, innovation in glasses, new wine tourism practices. His perspective is that of an actor committed to the modernization of French sommelier practices.
- This discourse inspires companies and institutions that wish to integrate development sustainability without giving up joy and refinement.
What if water was the greatest wine in the world? A sommelier's perspective on the essentials.
Through a passionate and unexpected narrative, this sommelier reveals that water is not just a simple drink, but a true vector of emotions, terroir, and sensations, capable of rivaling wine. An ode to attention, tasting, and the freedom of taste, which invites us to rediscover water as a sensory experience and a profoundly living act.