DAWA judge profile: Zachary Tay

Award winning sommelier Zachary Tay is a judge at the 2019 Decanter Asia Wine Awards

Zachary Tay

Zachary Tay first entered the world of gastronomy through the kitchen before finding his niche in wine. He spent five years in restaurants in Singapore before going on to sharpen his skills in Switzerland, where he earned a Silver medal in ZAGG, Switzerland’s national culinary competition, in 2004.

Inspired by Europe’s longstanding wine culture, he found his calling at Les Amis where he worked his way up over five years, achieving the coveted World Gourmet Summit’s Bodegas Torres wine scholarship in 2007. In 2010 he was nominated for the World Gourmet Summit’s Sommelier of the Year, serving as Les Amis’s Chef Sommelier until 2011.

In 2017, Zachary won the “Flight Club” challenge, a series of blind tastings organised by Premium Independent Wines of South Africa, successfully identifying 5 French wines amongst 30 others.