DAWA judge profile: Wataru Iwata
Award winning sommelier Wataru Iwata is joining the judging team at the Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2019
Wataru Iwata
Wataru Iwata was born in Nagoya, Japan. He moved to New Zealand in 2013 and after spending three years in Auckland and one year in Europe, he moved back to Japan, and started to work in a popular wine Bar, Cave de K, in Kyoto.
Iwata was named the Best Sommelier of Japan in 2017, and also won the Association de la Sommellerie Internationale Asia-Oceania Best Sommelier Competition in 2018. He achieved 11th place in the A.S.I Best Sommelier in the world competition 2019.
Iwata starts as sommelier in a new hotel The Thousand Kyoto from October 2019. In the meantime, he has been working as wine ambassador for several Japanese companies.
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Natalie is Decanter's France editor, commissioning and writing content on French wines (excluding Bordeaux) across print and digital. She writes Decanter's coverage of Languedoc wines, as well as a monthly magazine column, The Ethical Drinker, which unpicks the thorny topic of sustainability in wine. She joined Decanter in 2016.
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