We are pleased to announce that the 2022 Villa Sandi Houston Sommelier Competition is now open to candidates from anywhere in the world!
Any and all wine professionals are encouraged to apply.
The only requirement is that candidates be present for testing in Houston during the Taste of Italy festival and fair — March 13-14, 2022.
The winner of this competition will receive a $750 stipend and a fully sponsored trip to Vinitaly, the annual Italian wine trade fair in Verona. The runner up will receive a stipend of $750. The second runner up will receive $500.
Villa Sandi, producer of premium Prosecco, is this year’s Houston Sommelier Competition title sponsor.
The Texas Wine School will also offer one or more scholarships, including the Riccardo Caflisch Memorial Scholarship in Italian Wine Studies, to qualified competitors who complete the Texas Wine School’s scholarship application, which can be found and downloaded here.
If you’d like to participate in the 2022 competition, please send an email to the organizers by clicking here. Please be sure to specify your accreditation status and your current job status.
The brainchild of Houston-based sommelier Jaime De Leon, a regional wine buyer and manager for Kroger supermarkets, the Houston Sommelier Competition is modeled after the Court of Sommeliers exam, considered by many to be one of the most challenging in the wine world today.
Candidates will be required to complete a theory test (arguably the hardest of the three exams); a blind tasting where they have to identify the grape, the appellation, and the vintage; and a service test where they will have to serve wine in a mock dining room setting.
For the 2019 event (the last time the competition was held), more than 20 sommeliers participated. The winners (above) were awarded with honorariums intended to help them continue their fine wine studies.
De Leon will be enlisting some of the city’s top sommeliers and wine experts to serve as judges and proctors for the exams.
Taste of Italy, March 13-14, 2022 in Houston.
Taste of Italy Houston is the largest trade fair in the U.S. devoted exclusively to Italian wine and food products.
