Djurdja Katic, a sommelier - I am preparing unique wine in this region

Djurdja Katic (Photo: Lična arhiva)

When she participated in her grandfather’s vineyard grape harvest in Dalmatia, she never thought of it as just the beginning of her roads of wine. Although she tasted ten thousands of kinds, today wine does not intoxicate her but makes her lifestyle. She worked as a sommelier in Belgrade’s restaurant, Madera after that as a Sales Manager at the Jelic winery and now she is preparing her first wine and advices new wineries. Djurdja Katic, a sommelier, a technologist and a vice president of the Sommeliers’ Association of Serbia (SERSA), has been working on wine culture expansion in Serbia for years.

- A sommelier used to be exclusively male job. As time goes by, there is an increasing number of women, though leadership positions have still been occupied by men but it is only a matter of time when we will have a female champion. There are also more men in our region as well. Women who deal with wine are rare in our environment but they are masters at their job – Djudja Katic says at the beginning of her interview for eKapija.

She confirmed her sommelier expertise by winning the national competition and, as she says, she is the only woman who won the competition of wine professionals twice in a row. At her first Euroepan competition in Sophia in 2008, she was awarded for the best recommendation and wine analysis of the “siraz” kind and that was the first time a representative from Serbia climbed the winning stage together with the best sommeliers in the world. Last year, she was nominated among three best-known people in the wine world globally whose work contributed to wine culture and profession expansion and popularization.

- I do not compete anymore but I share my experience from a number of competitions to generations to come. I look forward to the first semi-final for Serbia from the world competitions already from the next European or world competition in 2015 from whoever will represent us.

The first wine from her grandfather’s vineyard

From her childhood, she took nice memories of the first grape harvests in her grandfather’s vineyard in Dalmatia.

- Unfortunately, childhood moments were not so nice since I spent them mostly in war times, in dark and cold basements, under smart shell thunders with a chronic fear. I do though remember us as kids coming home in the evening from grandfather’s vineyard. We could not wash off grape sugar from ourselves. I remember the first grapes processing in our family house in Benkovac and the first wine sips. I also remember when our father bought us a horse which was a true madness for someone living in a city center – our collocutor remembers.

Durdja Katic says she did not choose what she would do but that the job chose her instead.

- Life somehow managed it for me. I had only one objective – to succeed in life; to finish studies, to educate and create. As war refugees, we lost everything. When life gives you something like this, you are judged to succeed or you will not exist. I looked back for the first time a year or two ago, when one of my best interviews was published in a daily. Reading about myself, for the first time I became aware how far I got in a relatively short period of time of only 5-6 years.

Djurdja Katic graduated at the Faculty of technology in Novi Sad and when she wanted to learn more she entered the Belgrade-based sommelier school and became a known wine taster and evaluator. Today, she lectures at the wine school sommelier training and at the trainings for wine fans. Since 2011, she has been a member of the state evaluation Panel.

- When you are devoted to what you do and to the people you work with, there is no difference whether you carry out training to future experts or to those who know the world of wine to smaller extent. The difference is only at the level of knowledge and information you provide– a collocutor of eKapija mentions.

The first job at Madera

Today, sommeliers are not only tasters, evaluators and wine sellers but they represent a maestro of wine and food harmony at restaurants and hotels. In a famous Belgrade’s restaurant, Madera, Djurdja Katic, started working in early 2008 as the first sommelier.

She acquired an extensive experience of wine sales and wine card at Madera. Everyday communication with demanding guests taught her, as she says, to be a good psychologist and to be able to estimate her guests' profiles.

- There were various anecdotes in the restaurant when they would represent me a sommelier. Somebody asked me: “Are you from Somalia?” Also, a guest once asked me: “And what’s your name Mrs. Sommelier?”

She says it was very difficult for her to leave Madera after more than two years but that she continued developing in the world of wine.

She started cooperating with Valjevo-based Jelic winery in 2010. She says she is most proud of the promotion of a new Serbian kind “morava" and the promotion of the “pinot noire kind.

Since last year, our collocutor is a person of trust of the world association of sommeliers ASI for Serbia and she organizes examination for the International sommelier degree for sommeliers from Serbia who completed their training in SERSA.

Djurdje Katic attended almost all wine fairs, degustation, and conferences, worldwide. For her, France is never-ending source of new wines and learning but she finds Chile an interesting wine country as well.

- Every country leaves a specific impression. When it comes to conferences or fairs, I always take with myself different experience both on wines we do not have a chance to taste in Serbia and from wineries or from the best world sommeliers. That experience is priceless.

She will tour these places as a tourist when she retires because every minute should be spent on degustation and new wines, experience share with other sommeliers and wine producers as well as on tasting national gastronomic specialties.

When it comes to new wine roads, she is planning to tour the world at least once.

Her first wine

She does not know the exact number of wines she tasted but she claims there were ten thousands of them. Smilingly, she says she is lucky for not finding her favorite wine yet.

In order to do a wine analysis, a sommelier should have sufficient rest, he or she should not smoke or drink, should not eat strong food and should not be under stress. Our collocutor says jokingly she is a saint, she does not have a single vice and that she even trains in a gym once a week. She is serious when she says she does not split working and leisure time.

Everything she has been doing so far is to prepare as much as possible for her vineyard and wine basement.

- I am now preparing my first wine. It is a red mixture in limited edition of 1.982 bottles from 2012 harvest. Every bottle in a box will have a different label. Everything has been manually designed and has not been seen so far here. Every bottle will be a small piece of art.

Sommelier

There is no adequate translation of the French word “sommelier” in our language. It is originally pronounced as “sommelier” but in our language it is usually produced with “r” at the end.

S.O.