The competition to select S. Pellegrino - Ireland’s Best Young Sommelier live final took place recently at the DIT Teaching and Learning Bar, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin 1. This initiative between the DIT School of Culinary Arts & Food Technology and Stafford Lynch Ltd offered hospitality students the unique opportunity to improve their sommelier skills in harmonizing water, wine and food to create a fine dining experience for their guests.
The overall winner of the competition was James Halligan (pictured alongside Una Lynch of Stafford Lynch and DIT Lecturer James Murphy), who is a student of the DIT BSc (Hons) degree in Bar Management & Entrepreneurship programme.
The competition was held over two rounds attracting a huge entry in the first round (semi-finals) which were organised during the month of January and culminating in the live final where the top six semi-finalists demonstrated their practical and theoretical skills in the service, tasting and harmonization of water, wine and food to a panel of expert judges.
Mr. Donncha Curran (Senior Brand Manager, Stafford Lynch Ltd) and Ms. Una Lynch (Director, Stafford Lynch Ltd) expressed their delight at the huge interest, professional skills and intellectual abilities demonstrated by all the participants of the S. Pellegrino -Ireland’s best young sommelier competition and thanked Mr. James Murphy (DIT Lecturer & Co-ordinator S. Pellegrino best young sommelier competition) for organising an excellent event. This years winners were as follows;
Overall Winner : James Halligan, who won a special dinner for two at Thorntons Restaurant, Dublin, 2nd place: Cian Hamilton and 3rd Place: Tiawen Zhou. All three winners are also students of the DIT BSc (Hons) degree in Bar Management & Entrepreneurship programme.
