On August 1st, two sommeliers from Napa Valley’s very own darling Yountville proved their deftness by scoring first and second place titles in the annual TOP|SOMM 2010 competition. Matthew Stamp of The French Laundry, and Jason Heller of REDD beat out ten of the country’s greatest wine minds (and noses?) as they competed for the national U.S. Sommelier Championship title. Stamp scored the highest on the written theory exam, accompanied by 185 fellow competitors at the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco, hosted by The Guild of Sommeliers Education Foundation. The competition consisted of the intense wine theory exam (modeled after the Court of Master Sommelier’s highest level examination, the Master Sommelier Diploma Exam) that reduced the pool of competitors to 50, followed by regional competitions that reduced the group to ten. The final ten (three of which were from California) also completed a service exam and a blind tasting of seven wines.
Read more at: http://www.guildsomm.com/News-Details.aspx?articleID=31
Go Yountville!