Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/113109
WHO���S WHO When ���Break a Leg��� Had Impact NEW YORK SOMMELIER OLIVIER FLOSSE SHARES HIS SUCCESSES by Katie Kelly Bell A 1 14 / the tasting panel / march 2013 Ambassador for Luce Recently Flosse was named as a Luce Ambassador, a concept initiated by the Luce winery to honor a select few restaurants worldwide. As an ambassador, Flosse will share his opinions on the wines and the dishes he inds pair best with various vintages. ���I just completed a video with the winery about three to four months ago, they picked four restaurants in the world to feature and we were one of them. I���m not good on camera, but I loved the experience and the Luce winery team was very passionate.��� Flosse and A Voce will also enjoy the added ���ambassador��� perk of special access to large format bottles and older vintages of Luce. ���Luce has great crowd appeal,��� notes Flosse. ���People love it, especially the way the wine blends traditional and modern styles of winemaking. It���s very complex, but easy to enjoy young. The Merlot gives it softness while the Sangiovese helps the wine age and gives it character and beauty. Grown in an area where Sangiovese is king, it���s so nice to have Merlot. Together they make a wine with elegance, inesse and a touch of femininity, but powerful as well.��� Olivier Flosse, Wine Director for Manhattan���s A Voce and MARC. PHOTO: EVAN SUNG ccidents do happen, and for Olivier Flosse, Wine Director for Manhattan���s A Voce and MARC (Marlon Abela Restaurant Corporation), this can be a very good thing. Flosse started his hospitality career cleaning glasses at Le Petit Nice in Marseille, France. ���I wasn���t able to enter the dining room; I was in the back, until the assistant to the sommelier broke his leg.��� Needing an extra hand, the sommelier immediately put Flosse to work as a temporary assistant. He was a natural, and shortly after that Flosse was accepted to wine school in Bordeaux, where he received Europe���s most impressive wine degree, the Diploma-Universitaire d'Aptitude �� la D��gustation �� Bordeaux. ���I keep trying to ind the man who broke his leg to thank him, but I���ve had no luck.��� Upon graduation, Flosse headed to the celebrated Le Manoir aux Quat��� Saisons in Oxford, England, ultimately making his way to New York in 1999. ���I arrived with just $400 in my pocket,��� and a plum position as the assistant to Jean-Luc Le D�� at Daniel Boulud���s Restaurant Daniel. ���Daniel was an entirely new experience for me because quality and speed were the focus. We were serving 300 to 350 very high-end customers a night; you cannot make any mistakes and you have to be fast. But the customer never has to feel you are going fast. It was a big challenge.��� Noting his impressive work with both Restaurant Daniel and Caf�� Boulud, Flosse was asked by longtime acquaintance Marlon Abela of MARC restaurants to open A Voce and build the wine list. ���At the same time I was also asked to take over as Wine Director for Daniel���I had to choose. And here we are eight years later. We were just recognized at A Voce as having one of the four best wine lists in the world.��� Earnest about being a team player and never one to take too much credit, Flosse has certainly earned his success and that���s no accident.