Master Sommelier John Szabo was the first Canadian to add the “MS” after his name in 2004. He’s seen the hospitality business from all sides including cooking and washing dishes, serving and sommellerie, importing, teaching, writing, and speaking, consulting and judging internationally. He was listed as “Canada’s best-known sommelier” in Meininger’s Wine Business International. Today, John continues to teach and consult, but his day job is as partner and principal critic for WineAlign.com, Canada’s largest wine publication. He writes occasionally for US-based Wine & Spirits Magazine, and has published or held columns in dozens of other magazines and newspapers. He is the author of Pairing Food and Wine For Dummies (Wiley, 2012), and Sommelier Management, and his latest book, Volcanic Wines, Salt, Grit and Power (Jacquie Small, 2016, UK) hit shelves in October 2016, winning the André Simon Award and making the top drinks books of 2016 in The Guardian, Forbes Magazine, Decanter, Globe & Mail and JancisRobinson.com. It has also earned him the distinction of being "one of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject” according to Drinks Business Magazine.
Closer to the land, he is a partner in the small J&J Eger vineyard in Hungary. And as a third degree black belt in Goju-Ryu Karate-do, his grapes are well protected, too.
