Barcelona is hosting the third edition of the Wine & Culinary International Forum today, a biennial international conference dedicated to food and wine pairing.
Over 250 professionals, including sommeliers, restaurant owners, distributors and journalists from almost 20 different countries, participated in the event. Celebrated in the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya, it provided a forum in which to reflect and discuss the complementary relationship between wine and food under the heading “Wine and World Cuisines.”
The president of Bodegas Torres, Miguel A. Torres, opened the event, which featured talks, tastings and culinary demonstrations by a total of 20 national and international experts who are highly regarded in their fields. Among them, Josep Roca, sommelier at El Celler de Can Roca; the award winning wine-writer and journalist Sarah Jane Evans MW, an expert in Spanish wines as well as the former Chairman of the Institute of Masters of Wine; the prestigious French enologist Pascal Chatonnet, one of the leading researchers into the microbiological factors involved in the interaction between wine and oak; Canadian researcher François Chartier, a pioneer in the aromatic science of molecular food matching since 2004 and author of Taste Buds and Molecules, world’s best innovative food 2010; the renowned French wine critic Michel Bettane; and the endocrinologist Dr. Francisco Tinahones, a researcher at the University of Malaga.
The event also saw the participation of sommeliers named Best Sommelier in the World at one time in their career, including the German sommelier Markus Del Monego MW and the Swedish sommelier Jon Arvid Rosengren. The latter joined Christophe Brunet, ambassador of Primum Familiae Vini, an association representing 11 of the oldest and most prestigious wine families in the world, for an extraordinary tasting of the wineries’ most iconic wines.
The culinary demonstrations were led by pairs, including Jungsik Yim (Jungsik Restaurant, South Korea) and the Irish sommelier Julie Dupouy; Fina Puigdevall (Les Cols Restaurant, Spain) and the sommeliers Josep Mª Pelegrín (Best Sommelier in Spain 2016) and Anna Busquets (Sommelier at Les Cols); Albert Raurich and the Japanese sommelier Tamae Imachi (both from Dos Palillos Restaurant, Spain); and Helena Rizzo (Mani Restaurant, Brazil) and the Italian-Brazilian food and travel writer Luciana Bianchi.
Spanish wine-journalist Víctor de la Serna moderated a roundtable discussion on social media communication and wineblogging featuring Amaya Cervera (SpanishWineLover), Tim Atkin MW and Jorge G. Balsera (Sibaritastur).
The program of the 3rd Wine & Culinary International Forum was coordinated by Foro de Debate (organizers of Madrid Fusión) with the support of the advisory committee, formed by Josep Roca, François Chartier, Nick Lander and Víctor de la Serna.
