Meet the world’s best sommelier — He’s from Latvia!

The small Baltic nation might seem like an unlikely home for the world’s best sommelier, but then you haven’t met Raimonds Tomsons. It seems ironic considering his word-perfect English today that Raimonds Tomsons’ life as a sommelier began with a missed linguistic opportunity: “After secondary school, my plan was to study foreign languages, but it didn’t work out.” Instead, he found himself in a professional school training as a waiter and bartender. A detour that, with time, would prove to be a destiny. Rather than speak of “eureka moments,” Raimonds prefers to credit the two figures who shap...