The “Olive Oil Sommelier” is a qualified specialist of olive oil with enough knowledge of its history, cultivars (varieties), growing, milling and food pairing as well as technical capability in sensory evaluation.
The Olive Oil Sommelier Association of Japan (OSAJ) has operated the Olive Oil Sommelier School since 2009, and today there are over 900 Junior Sommelier graduates, 250 Olive Oil Sommelier advanced course graduates and 20 Master Sommelier graduates.
For those Olive Oil Sommelier graduates, as well as other qualified candidates, OLIVE JAPAN 2014 organized the first annual “Sommelier Concours” so that they may test their technical capability of sensory analysis in competition against their peers and earn the chance to claim the award of No.1 Olive Oil Sommelier in Japan for 2014.
The followings are the Concours results:
The 1st BEST OLIVE OIL SOMMELIER :
Ms. Mikiko WATANABE (OSAJ – Master Sommelier)
The 2nd BEST OLIVE OIL SOMMELIER :
Ms. Sekiyo MIZUNO (OSAJ – Master Sommelier)
The 3rd BEST OLIVE OIL SOMMELIERS :
Ms. Tomoko KIKUCHI (OSAJ – Master Sommelier), and
Mr. Osamu JINGUJI (OSAJ – Master Sommelier)
