ANDRÉ MACIONGA
André Macionga, F. A. Z. Sommelier of the Year 2013 and Gault&Millau Host of the Year 2017, has always had a passion for diving into the world of flavours. The combination of different tastes, the mixture of food and drink, that sensual interplay, fascinated André even in his early youth.
Key experience in youth
When André Macionga completed his training as a restoration specialist, there was a key experience that shaped his future life: the General Manager caught André thoughtlessly dusting the wine bottles. He should please do this a little more sensitively, his superior ordered. Macionga was amazed. This cultivated man stood in front of him and told him something about sensitivity. Sensitivity to wine? My superior spoke with such seriousness. I stood there with my mouth open, was dazed for ten minutes and thought to myself: What is going on here? That’s just wine, isn’t it? But it became clear to Macionga – if this seasoned man treats wine so carefully, then this must be important. Because in wine there is history, devotion and passion and it should therefore be stored and treated accordingly.
Curiosity shapes his life
Driven by curiosity, André Macionga wanted to find out the attitude of his superior towards wine. Achieving the optimum in knowledge and skill was the goal that drove him. From that moment on, he wanted to know everything about wine. “If you want to know wines, you have to taste them” is André Macionga’s attitude. As a result, at a young age he literally threw himself into the world of wine.
Wine at a high level
As his understanding of wine grew, so did his desire to taste higher quality wines. When the collaboration with Marie Anne Raue and Tim Raue began in 2006, they enabled André to explore wine at a high level. André deepened his studies step by step with the approach of choosing a region and intensively dealing with it over several months. Macionga worked on this until he understood these areas, and then move onto to the next one. He often visited wineries, exchanged ideas with winegrowers, explored with different foods and literally immersed himself in the world of different wines. “Marie and Tim offered me the opportunity to focus on wine and to recognize the subtle differences in aromas”. So André educated himself as a wine expert.
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