Pablo Soares Fernandez IWA
Pablo is from Florianópolis, Brazil. An engineer by training with an MBA in Project Management at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (and certified Project Manager in 2011 by the renowned Project Management Institute), Pablo worked for 15 years with greenfield projects in the energy sector. But, in 2019, he decided to follow his passion and took a sabbatical. On this sabbatical, after driving 13,000 kilometers across Italy, he understood his true love and purpose in life were there. He decided to follow his passion for the Bel Paese and turn this into his professional work.
With the pandemic, he began his education in wine, quickly making several certificates (Professional Sommelier, WSET Level 3, Italian Wine Scholar Guild). In 2022 he started his studies for the WSET Diploma. Also, in 2022, Pablo became an Italian Wine Ambassador of the Vinitaly International Academy, London class, thus achieving his dream of working with his true passion: Italy and its culture, history, food, and wine. Pablo is now working on bringing Vinitaly International Academy’s basic and intermediate courses to Brazilian audiences, as he strongly believes in the potential of this market for Italian wines. In addition, Pablo promotes consulting, mentoring, tastings, and classes for oenophiles in Brazil with his remote and in-person tasting project, tente.online.
He also writes about wines for the websites southamericawineguide.com and vinhosunica.com.br. His friends call him a wine geek and nerd, which he vehemently denies as he reads Professor Scienza’s new book for a second time.
What sommeliers want now: Wine & Spirits Magazine and Top Sommeliers on Italian wine trends in the US
What do current wine industry leaders look for in Italian wine as they expand their wine lists? Josh Greene, Publisher of Wine & Spirits Magazine, and Stephanie Johnson, the publication’s Italian Editor, will discuss this and more with three of the most respected sommeliers in the US today. The session will cover a range of topics, including the categories that sell without any effort on the part of sommeliers; the categories that fascinate them but don’t ever sell; the categories for which they have successfully found wine-list presentation, pairings, or other tools to interest diners in trying something new. The session will also include a simulation one of the _Wine & Spirits_ tasting panels, giving audience members valuable insights into how a leading publication talks about the wines they taste and score.