When we winos think of sommeliers, there is a tendency to believe they’re from France, or Italy, maybe Australia, perhaps Argentina.
But Croatia?
It was a small winery somewhere north of Zagreb that sent Sinisa Lepanovic to the world of wines. On the Celebrity Eclipse, he is more than a sommelier…he is The Cellar Master, a title bestowed on the most deserving of sommeliers by a cruise line that takes its wine seriously. Is having 22 sommeliers on the Eclipse serious enough?
The fact that Sinisa would probably be ID’d if he were a wine customer is beside the point. His roots in the business and his eagerness to be educated made him a sommelier before 30, and he’s been a Solstice-Class Cellar Master for more than three years.
“My grandfather had a small winery in Croatia, and I used to help him,” he says. “I tasted wine before fermentation, and I liked it [when it was essentially fruit juice]. Then later I had the real wine, and I liked it. We are not a big producer in Croatia…we make small quantities. In our family business, I was helping my uncle, and we learned how to do everything. Yes, jumping on the grapes, too, at harvest.”
Lepanovic started as a bar server with Celebrity, almost seven years ago. He enrolled in the Cordon Bleu School in Miami and supplemented that with seminars and exams on board and having a degree from Croatia in economics and business didn’t hurt his climb to Master Sommelier, or Cellar Master, one of about 15 with the company.
The Equinox is his sixth ship and, like all Celebrity ships, there is a room named after him…Cellar Masters.
“To be a Master of Sommelier, you can know everything, but if you don’t have a style — if you have no personality — you will not make it as a master,” he says. “You need knowledge, personality and style.”
And a love of wine.
When pressed, like the grapes, Sinisa admits his white preference would be a Sauvignon Blanc and he likes his reds big, from the Cabernet Sauvignon vines. However, the reality is he just likes wine.
“Wine is like the ladies,” he laughs. “They are all beautiful!”