SINGAPORE — The Asia Best Sommelier Competition in French Wines 2015, which took place this month at Le Meridien Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, saw some of the region’s finest sommeliers go head to head in a test of knowledge and experience.

South Korea’s Jungmin An, head sommelier in the food service division of the SPC Group, claimed top honours while Singapore’s Alan Au Kok Hoong, who works at Iggy’s, was first runner-up. Second runner-up was Po-Ting Luo from Taiwan’s Temple Restaurant Beijing.

Organised by Sopexa with the assistance of the Sommelier Association of Malaysia and supported by the French Ministry of Agriculture, the Provence Wines Council and Vintec – Wine Preservation and Technology, the competition was part of the relaunched international sommelier completion on French wines that Sopexa and the French Ministry of Agriculture had started in the 1980s. And it was Asia’s growing market for wines that convinced organisers that the region was a good place to start this “rebirth” of sorts.

“By relaunching this competition, Sopexa hopes to create a strong partnership between sommeliers, national associations and the French wines. Asia saw major development in terms of wines, and we must be committed to help as much as we can in order to strengthen the wine industry, the sommelier and the knowledge of wine in the region,” said Grégoire Debré, Sopexa director for South East Asia and Taiwan.

The competition gathered the best two candidates from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Macao and South Korea.

“Today we have candidates of the same quality as sommeliers from Japan, Europe and France,” said main judge Jean-Pascal Paubert, Maitre Sommelier and Honorary President of Union de la Sommelerie Française and SBA (Bordeaux and Aquitaine Sommeliers), who also pointed out the vast improvement in the candidates in the past seven years.