Once upon a time … in fact, it was in 6000 B.C or so that the first grape vines appeared in the Caucasus, cradle of wine-making. Moving via Egypt, Phoenicia and Greece, Italy and North Africa, wine reached us. It is no longer reserved for rulers or used as a means of exchange, but remains a symbol of sharing and lifestyle.

“Wine is one of the rare products that improves with aging. It exerts a magical power, fascinates and makes you dream.” When speaking of wine, Richard Sagala is unstoppable and I have to remind him of space limitations.

When his wife was Canadian consul in Lyon in the ‘90s, Richard Sagala became initiated into the world of diplomacy, ceremony and protocol. He was particularly fascinated by the orchestra conductor’s role of the majordomo – from the Latin major domus – the head of the house – whom the English call the butler. It’s a role that pleased and fascinated him; he obtained certification from the International Butler Academy, making him the first and perhaps only certified butler in Quebec.

But his intuition advised him to achieve a more rounded, contemporary expertise than a profession in danger of extinction and he decided to become a wine expert. He took a course from the Wine Spirit Education Trust (WSET), an international standard that allowed him to obtain an MBA specializing in the business of wine.

His goal now was to create a wine school whose objective was to teach wine lovers how to compose and manage a wine cellar. “Managing a wine cellar is not just storing bottles, but anticipating what could age well and knowing wine-food pairings. And also, how do you choose with an SAQ offering more than 20,000 labels?”

His school, In Vino Veritas – based in Montreal – will offer in our area, starting this summer, a program that includes themed conferences, presentations and tasting workshops as well as clubs of 10 individuals – to retain conviviality – which would meet periodically.

These clubs would appeal to three types of customers. The first level (Nansen) would explore taste, style and value (quality/price ratio) of a wine: bottles from $20 to $50. The second level (Belvedere) would interest the purchaser who wants to create a cellar and seeks the aging potential: bottles from $150 to $450. And the third level (Kandahar) would attract the impassioned who want to share the grands crus: “‘you have no idea as long as you haven’t tasted it,’ said one of my professors.”

And why Mont-Tremblant? Montrealer Richard Sagala is a Mont- Tremblant person at heart. His family has skied around here since 1947 and it’s in this spirit of being a native son that he has chosen to create a branch of In Vino Veritas here. A region that values health, gastronomy and the art of living seems to him to provide fertile ground for distilling – in a playful way – a knowledge and love of wine.

richardsagala.wordpress.com

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