MILANO SAKE CHALLENGE
June 2024
WHAT IS Milano Sake Challenge
The Milano Sake Challenge (MSC) is par excellence the Japanese sake competition aimed at the Italian public, held in Milan, Italy every year since 2019. The jury is composed almost exclusively of Italians, all chosen among the best Sake Sommeliers certified by the Sake Sommelier Association Italiana.
Our aim in organising the MSC is to highlight the potential of pairing with Western cuisine, and in particular with Italian cuisine, which is for us a pride of our country, and to clear customs of the sake product with its different meanings and nuances for the Italian public that is learning about it in these very years
In addition to the actual competition, Milano Sake Challenge is also the largest Milano Sake Festival active on the Italian market.
The Milano Sake Festival (formerly the Fuori Milano Sake Challenge) offers participants the opportunity to taste the hundreds of sake offered at the Challenge to raise awareness of sake, as well as giving Japanese producers the chance to make themselves known to the Italian market and thus to the European market.
To ensure the impartiality and legitimacy of our event, from the 2022 edition the Milan Sake Challenge will use a dedicated voting tool called Sake Index that allows judges to vote independently and apply a mathematical approach to voting to ensure uniformity and a mathematical approach to the data.
Finally, to ensure even more impartiality and voting training for judges, from the 2024 edition there will be at least 3 "assesment" sessions (online and in-person) of voting training during the year in which candidate judges can participate to train their judging palate and become familiar with the application.
IF YOU ARE SAKE CERTIFIED SOMMELIER FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY TO BECOME A JUDGE
A qualified judge is a judge who has attended one or more 'assessment' sessions during the year, i.e. tasting sessions in which a common assessment metric is obtained.
The assessment of a qualified judge carries more weight and is more relevant to the final outcome.
Until 2023 we called this event the Fuori Milano Sake Challenge, but from 2024 it becomes the MILANO SAKE FESTIVAL.
The bottles evaluated by the judges are presented to the public for a free tasting, with no admission charge.
The event is curated by the Italian Sake Sommelier Association and aims to expand the proper sake experience in Italy
3 TYPES OF JURY
TASTING
The focus of tihs judges is to taste and evaluate blindly all the bottles, separated by type and variety. Evaluating flavours and aromas without being influenced by the design or reputation of the product.
FOOD PAIRING
Sake will be accompanied by five dishes of Italian cuisine, from savoury to sweet. This year special partner is Parmigiano Reggiano and the a delegation of official Taster, will explore the fascinating combinations of sake and Italian gastronomy.
DESIGN/STYLE
The focus of this judges will be on the label, the shape of the bottle and any packaging, all of which contribute to the overall experience of experiencing sake.
Fair judgment is a must
We implement a software that allow us to evaluate and assign rewards with extreme and mathematical precision.
Judges vote using Sake Index, an application specifically designed for competition vote, with real time analytics, monitoring of competition, judgment tools, statistics per judge, category, session, global level, vote variation and more, all to be able to give the correct vote to each sake.
Sake Indexprovides also reports of competition for each sake and creates final statistics and medal assignment right at the end of the competition.
