Yoichi Sato, owner and sommelier of Maxivin restaurant in Tokyo, is a judge at the Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2019
Yoichi Sato
Osaka-born Yoichi Sato trained as a sommelier in France before returning to his native Japan in 1991 to work at Tokyo’s Enoteca Pinchiorri as a sommelier. In 1994, he became Chief Sommelier at Joël Robuchon’s restaurant Taillevent Robuchon, before spending three years working in several different restaurants.
Yoichi opened his own restaurant Maxivin in Roppongi Tokyo in 2000, and is still the owner and sommelier today. He was named the Best Sommelier of Japan in 2005 and won the World’s Best Sommelier Competition in Greece in 2007. Yoichi became a director of the Japan Sommelier Association in 2008 and was one of two Japanese representatives at the Best Sommelier of Asia-Oceania contest in 2012. He received his International Sommelier Association Diploma in 2012, and became a Tokyo Meister in 2013.
