The 5th Rioja Sommelier Cooking Competition was successfully held in Shanghai on Dec 8, a light-hearted celebration for Sommeliers at the end of each year.

 

The first Chinese Master Sommelier Yang LV being the host, six judgers were invited to the competition, including the Wine Review magazine publisher Puzhong ZHUANG, Restaurant Hunter blogger Xiaoyi LIU, founder of RubyRed wine import company Simon ZHOU, Shanghai LE VERRE a vin wine restaurant owner Jeffrey YAO, Shanghai Middle-House Hotel wine director James TENG, and the well-known chef Brian TAN.

 

 

During the competition, 18 professional sommeliers from five-star hotels and premium restaurants around the country gathered together, while most of them joined  for the first time. In groups of three, the sommeliers prepared dishes that should match the assigned Rioja wines. After four hours of intense competition, the R&B team won the 2019 Rioja Sommelier Cooking Competition with simmered ribs to pair with Faustino I Gran Reserva 2005 . The dish also won the Best Dish award.

Group: R&B (Rioja & Beef)

Members: Ginger JIANG, Henry WU, Felix XIE

 

 

As the fifth year of Rioja’s partnership with Master Sommelier Yang LV, this year’s competition aimed to broaden the knowledge of Rioja and deepen the understanding of typical Rioja styles among outstanding young sommeliers.The online popularity of the competition was extremely high, with more than 4,300 people watching the live broadcast, above 12,000 reads on Weibo, and over 4,700 reads on WeChat.