Florian Valières
Bordeaux Ambassador
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Advanced sommelier Florian Valières hails from the Basque Country, where he grew up intending to become a fitness instructor. After moving to Australia and finding that his master’s degree would not get him a job, he soon moved into hospitality and became fascinated by wine.
“Wine is changing every day, every week, every month, every year,” he says. “You're always learning. I think wine is something that, once it catches you, it just hooks you and then you never stop learning. So every day is a different day. You learn something about a region or a sub-region, a wine, a grape, but then when you start like digging further, and then there's so much other stuff in that same sub-region that you can learn. And then it goes all over the world like this! So, you add all the beverages such as beers, sake, cocktails, and everything, and you realise that you can't get to a point where you know everything. So you always, always learn. And that's the exciting part of it, I think.”
After spending 12 years in Australia, where he was Wine Director at Syracuse Restaurant and Wine Bar in Melbourne and Evra, in Brisbane, Florian is now back in his home country and working as Wine Director for the Philippe Etchebest group, in Bordeaux. At weekends, he travels back to his family in the Basque Country, near Biarritz.
He is currently studying for his Master Sommelier qualification.