Background
Michel was born in Stockholm in August 1964. As a young teenager, he decided to become a chef and started working in restaurants in Stockholm when he was only 15 years old. During the next five years he worked in several fine restaurants and during these years he became increasingly interested in wines.
At the time, the early 1980s, Sweden had a state monopoly for the importation of wines and spirits and another state monopoly to sell the wines and spirits. The assortment available was not extensive, just a few hundred brands of wines and spirits, making it difficult to learn more about wines. Little by little he gained knowledge by tasting wines together with more experienced wine personalities, among them the numerous sommeliers, when he entered the Swedish Sommelier Association in 1992.
When Sweden entered the European Union in 1995, the market opened for privately owned importers to sell wines to licensed restaurants and the state monopoly and in 1997, Michel decided to leave the restaurant floor to focus on a new career as a wine taster, educator and wine journalist.
Over the years Michel has been awarded several prestigious accolades for his work in the development of wine and food culture in Sweden. Today he is one of the most renowned wine personalities, both for his long time achievement, his books and articles, his appearance in television and online with more than two decades as a sommelier teacher, and with more than 10 000 wine tastings and seminars on wine.
Michel, the wine journalist and author
As a member of the national wine club Munskänkarna, Michel started to write reports on wine and tasting notes on the new entries at our state monopoly Systembolaget in 1992. In 1995 he started to write about beer for a Swedish wine publication, and a year later, his first book on wine and food matching was released. Since then, Michel have published 16 books on wine, wine and food, cheese and food, beer and food and spirits and been a co-author of several books on wine and wine and food matching.
After 15 years as a writer of fine wines for the leading fine wine magazine in Sweden, Michel left to open up his own web site Vinlegender (www.vinlegender.se – lägg det som en länk bakom) in 2018. Although he is the sole writer, it is without competition the wine site in Sweden with the most facts and knowledge about wine. He annually publishes more than 250 articles. The web site contains reviews and articles on wines, presentation of wine producers and winemakers, knowledge about vineyard work and winemaking, descriptions on appellations, vintage reports, restaurants reviews and articles on fine spirits.
Michel, the wine teacher
After leaving the restaurant floor in 1997, Michel was appointed as one of the teachers for the sommelier program at Restaurangakademien in Stockholm, the leading sommelier school in Sweden and licensed by WSET for wine education up to the Diploma level. Since then he has been involved in developing the program for sommelier training and for the examination of more than one thousand sommeliers.
Michel arranges cooking classes and courses in wine and food matching as well as other special courses. He arranges two day “master classes” on various topics and is one of the leading specialists in Sweden of for example Bourgogne, Chablis, Rhône, California, Oregon and Washington State. He also holds in depth seminars on countries like Spain and New Zeeland. Michel is often hired by international wine organizations to conduct classes on their wine regions and wines and he also arranges wine courses directly for restaurants, hotels and wine importing companies.
Michel, the wine traveler
Since the early 1990s, Michel has made over 400 trips to some of the world’s leading wine regions, visiting thousands of wineries and vineyards. These trips have taken him to Bourgogne, Rhône Valley, various regions in Spain, Austria, overseas to California, Oregon and Washington State among others. The driving force is his passion for wine growing and wine making and his never-ending interest in understanding the innermost essence of wine. To see the landscapes, understand the climatic conditions and soil types, to interview winegrowers and winemakers is essential in this lifelong journey and each trip will end up with new stories for his live audiences and in articles on his website.
Michel, the consultant
With four decades of experience in the restaurant and hotel business and the wine world, Michel is regularly hired as a consultant to develop the wine and food pairing at different restaurants and businesses. The assignments vary from compiling wine lists according to the food concept, wine and food pairing, staff training, service development and making businesses more profitable. Michel is also hired by leading wine importers in their search for a greater range of producers of wines and spirits to work with on the Swedish market.
Contact
To contact Michel Jamais, send an e-mail to michel@mvg.nu or by phone +46-70-7870889.
For deliveries, contact Michel Jamais and agree on a time, then use the following address (unless you’re told to use another one):
Michel Jamais, Turebergs Allé 13, S-19164 Sollentuna, SWEDEN.