The competition, organised by the Academy of Food & Wine Service, was held earlier this week at Hotel TerraVina in Hampshire.

Zwiebel was pitted against two former UK Sommeliers of the Year: Matthieu Longuere MS of La Trompette, London, and Nicolas Clerc MS from D&D London; and the current holder of the title Jan Konetzki of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

The four candidates were asked to complete a written paper, a blind tasting of two wines and five spirits, and a skills test involving a food and wine-matching test and a decanting task. They also had to to identify 12 errors on a wine list.

Chief judge Gerard Basset OBE, MW, MS and owner of Hotel TerraVina, said: "We really put these four sommeliers through the mill and tested their skills to the limit. Each candidate was strong in a particular area and not so in others, but we chose Eric as the candidate with the best all-round skills and the runner-up as Nicolas Clerc."

Basset judged the competition alongside the AFWS executive director Sophie Roberts-Brown, AFWS event manager Sarah Peters, Hotel TerraVina's head sommelier and former UK Sommelier of the Year Laura Rhys MS and 1998 winner Ronan Sayburn MS, director of wines at Hotel du Vin.