What you see across this store began, beside bottles of wine, out of private necessity...

Another evening, another few flashcards. I would squeeze new scrawlings into the margins left by old bullet-points. Rhône, Champagne, Bordeaux, Loire... An ambition to learn all recorded autochthonous Italian grape varieties, and all lieux-dits and climats of Bourgogne loomed weightily before me. How would it be done? All Burgundian inflections of Pinot Noir? It was a slightly absurd proposition, not least because I was out of the Industry and on a budget. 

Perhaps I could extend myself a courtesy: expedite the flashcarding. I already liked playing gin rummy, on occasion. It seemed rather obvious: one must find a way of combining gin rummy gameplay with flashcard study. Wine Rummy TM emerged from this scene. At one point, I thought I might like to cut the flashcards into the shapes of those grape-growing subregions given by their respective index-card faces, so that the flashcards would not only read with information but would remind one of the shapes of the geographic indications in question. Puzzle Maps TM came of this initially somewhat impossible notion.

There are other stories but they all have a similar contour: recreational wine student seeks dynamic and interactive study materials on a comprehensive scale—materials occasionally to be gamified among friends. Here is the result. Welcome, in many languages, to SommPuzzles.

 

- Albert

Founder (just another student of wine)

 

Et cetera (Allow me to editorialize...):

SommPuzzles is a brand devised specifically for sommeliers and other wine professionals. After this select group, we also expect hospitality people and wine-and-beverage aficionados to take an interest in our products. Thirdly, those nurturing a bookish (even if amateur) interest in learning about wine are also welcome as part of the SommPuzzles community.

Indeed, we encourage any oenophiles with a penchant for study and learning to consider our products. Anyone who would join a tasting group or attend a seminar on Santorini Assyrtiko is probably a candidate customer of SommPuzzles. All that said, we are not in the business of compelling any old bargoer to play Wine Rummy or keep a Grid Book. These study games and tools are principally for those who are, in some capacity, already studying wine.

Most game products and many products in general, no matter the topical focus, are marketed to a generic end-user, to anyone and everyone; SommPuzzles takes a different approach entirely. Indeed, just as in graduate school education, where students (MA, MFA, PhD candidates) would not expect to begin their coursework with material tantamount to a 101-level class for undergraduates, potential SommPuzzles customers and candidates of the SommPuzzles community should likewise not expect our games and study tools to help somehow instruct on rudimentary wine, wine-tasting or viticultural acumen. Those in our community come to the table with that acumen; and, if not, they are eager to catch-up and learn from any available resources.

At SommPuzzles, we think that an appeal to the demos, an appeal to everyone, the idea that product-validity is measured by the size of the available market, hides dangerous assumptions. These assumptions often prioritize mass-appeal over cultivating specific discourses; such assumptions often put a vague and reactionary general consumer before those distinctions that define communities, make society vibrant and push humanity in more sustainable directions.

The sustainable directions are agonistic ones: that is what makes them sustainable. They do not presuppose that everyone will agree on everything all the time. SommPuzzles is for somms and wine professionals first. Our games and study tools are for people who have already decided that wine is of particular interest. Even though our games can be handicap-adjusted according to the player, SommPuzzles are not explicitly designed to meet everyone where they are in their stage of learning no matter how neophytic. We have not built products for mass-appeal. Rather, we have built and continue to design products that enrich specific discourses already underway, that participate in ancient conversazioni always in transmission, that contribute to diverse and locally-oriented and idiosycratic archives of urges, thoughts, knowledge, human record. Just as literature is not for mere entertainment, wine is not merely for ambivalent hedonism. The games we play and studies we undertake should be similarly directed.

Cordially,

Albert

On behalf of the SommPuzzles Team

If you represent a hospitality group, or wine distributor or importer, and are interested in co-branded SommPuzzles products for your events and clients, do not hesitate to email us about a pilot run or purchase-order at info@sommpuzzles.org.