News
Guild Partners with Ruinart on Chardonnay Challenge
February 05, 2010
The Guild of Sommeliers has partnered with Champagne Ruinart to introduce the Chardonnay Challenge. This program will select 60 sommeliers to compete in one of three regional tasting events and vie for three awards of a $1,000 scholarship and a trip to Champagne.
Sommeliers applying to compete will be screened based on answers to five application questions. 60 sommeliers will be selected to move on to one of three regional tasting competitions (20 in each region) to vie for vie for three awards. One winner will be selected at each tasting win a $1,000 scholarship and a trip to Champagne. Sommeliers will be judged on their demonstrated knowledge of wines made from the Chardonnay grape and adeptness in pairing wine and food.
“The competition venue of the Chardonnay Challenge puts a new twist on our travel enrichment scholarship programs” said Fred Dame, President of the Guild of Sommeliers. “We are honored to be partnering with Champagne Ruinart to help educate sommeliers on wines, both still and sparkling, made from the Chardonnay grape and to have an esteemed panel of judges for each competition.” Dame added.
The three tasting competition will be held as follows:
SAN FRANCISCO - February 23 - Orson Restaurant - 11:00 to 1:00
NEW YORK - February 25 - The Standard - 1:00 to 3:00
PALM BEACH - March 1 - The Breakers - 12:00 to 2:00
Each tasting competition will be judged by a Master Sommelier (Geoff Kruth, MS in San Francisco, Fred Dexheimer, MS in New York and Virginia Philip, MS in Palm Beach) along with Ruinart Cellars' Master Frederic Panaiotis, and Seth Box, Director of Education at MHUSA.
Apply to Compete
Applications to compete are due one week prior to tasting:
San Francisco - February 16th by noon PST
New York - February 18th by noon PST
Palm Beach - February 22nd by noon PST
The Guild of Sommeliers extends our thanks to Champagne Ruinart for sponsoring this exciting scholarships enrichment program
|