SAVOUR Manitoba

4 SAVOUR MANITOBA | WINTER 23 Resident expert Meet our RESIDENT EXPERT Alex Allardyce PHOTOS BY DARCY FINLEY Alex fell in love with wine while travelling Europe for a year after graduating university in 2015. After completing a full harvest in the Languedoc-Roussillon, she returned to Winnipeg where she completed her Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET) Levels 2 and 3, and the Canadian Association of Professional Sommeliers (CAPS) Diploma Program in May 2020 to become a certified sommelier. Travelling for wine and food remains a big passion of hers and has taken her all over the world. Most notably, she has completed two harvest stints at Averill Creek on Vancouver Island and travelled to New York City and various cities in Scandinavia, work- ing with wine importers. Alex also finds great pleasure in teaching others about the world of wine and was certified in November 2022 as an educator with WSET to teach levels 1 and 2. Her most recent accomplish- ments include being awarded the CAPSTONE Canada Scholarship on behalf of CAPS Canada and California Wines Canada and being awarded top marks in the qualifying exam to travel to Porto to represent Manitoba in the quarter finals for the Master of Port Canada in 2022. Alex won the title of 2021 Best Sommelier of Manitoba and went on to compete in a national event in the Okanagan. She plans to compete at the upcom- ing Canada's Best Sommelier competition being held in Halifax in November 2023 and was also selected as one of 48 sommeliers from around the world to attend the ASI Bootcamp 2023 Americas at the end of October. Alex is currently employed at the Manitoba Club, a Platinum Club of the World (Top 100 City Club), work- ing as a head server and sommelier, managing a wine cellar encompass- ing over 500 wines.

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