Essi Avellan

The Path

Essi Avellan’s path has been shaped by repeated contact with Sparkling Wine in editorial, teaching, and judging settings. From 2007 to 2019, she served as editor at FINE Champagne magazine, applying discipline to a subject that can be treated too lightly. In Tampere, she also taught as a wine tasting course teacher at wine tasting course in Tampere, where tasting had to be translated into method and vocabulary for others. That same exacting approach carried into her work as a judge at Decanter World Wine Awards, where assessment depends on attention, memory, and consistency. Today, that work continues in two especially important forms. Since 2014, Essi has been judge of Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, a role that keeps her closely aligned with the category she has long specialized in. And since 2013, she has served as updated co-author of Christie's World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine, contributing to a reference work built on the same specialization.

The Work Today

Essi’s books, *Essi Avellan's Champagne* and *Matka Champagnee*, keep the same subject in view: Champagne and Sparkling Wine as a field that rewards precision as much as enthusiasm. Her own way of putting that preference is direct: "My palate is one for purity, elegance and vivacity." It is a useful measure of the kind of clarity she brings to the page and the glass. The writing and the judging sit on the same footing here. Both depend on reading a wine closely, then describing it in terms that other professionals can use. That is where her work lands: in the overlap between analysis and pleasure, with aroma, texture, and finish treated as part of the same technical conversation.

Signature

Essi's signature dishes include Christie's World Encyclopedia of Champagne & Sparkling Wine, Essi Avellan's Champagne, and Matka Champagnee. Together, they mark the main forms of her output: reference writing, authorship, and a consistent focus on Champagne and Sparkling Wine.

In Their Words “Regarding champagne, I love what is in the glass but I also love what lies beyond.”

Acclaim

Essi's honors include Knight rank in Order of Agricultural Merit, Alumnus of the year, Master of Wine (2006), and Dame Chevalier of Ordre de Coteaux de Champagne. Those recognitions sit alongside a career built through study, editing, teaching, judging, and writing, with Champagne and Sparkling Wine as the constant subject.