This year, the entire WAYANA team attended the wine meeting organized by Gustobar in Istanbul on 3 – 4 December 2022. It was surprising and exhausting for the young members of the team to digest both the network and the content (read as a tasting) of the event.
Let's draw the framework of the event first. The event is for wine professionals; that is not open to the public. The most striking part of this event, which was attended by local producers and a limited number of wine importers, was the open presentation of the wines, called Taste & Meet which were 'displayed' by the producers, to the members of the industry. When the number of wines added is close to 300, it is necessary to carry out this process very systematically and carefully. Otherwise, it is easy for the participants to lose their orientation after a short time.
The event also has a 'work-shop' section. Two competent Sommelier moderate the two-day professional tasting session called the Master Class. The moderators, who have an international reputation in their fields, evaluate and score 30 of the wines determined by the producers as candidates in the presence of the participants. We tasted and evaluated 15 wines on Saturday and 15 other wines on Sunday.
The contribution of the event to WAYANA was great. In this process, where we managed the systematic growth of the Wine Menu, meeting the producers and their products in a short way made our lives easier in terms of clarifying our roadmap. We saw and tasted the current harvests of the wines that we were together during the BEPPE period but could not add to the WAYANA menu yet. Our teammates gained first-hand experience in a professional wine event. We will quickly see the reflections of this participation on WAYANA.
Every event is strengthened by constructive criticism. It is a difficult task to present two events a year without repeating the product range of our country's limited number of manufacturers. In addition, it is very difficult to plan a healthy linear flow in tasting such a wide range of wines. On the other hand, wine production is still an area that many entrepreneurs are excited to invest in. Our wish is for the sectoral dynamism to continue, which will ensure that the event continues while preserving its value. We congratulate Gustobar for continuing this work tirelessly and wish him success.
