Results of more than 12,200 entries for the Decanter World Wine Awards 2011 were announced today at the London International Wine Fair.
Introducing the launch of the results, on Decanter.com, Decanter’s consultant editor Steven Spurrier compared Decanter to the engine room of the wine world.
‘Think of the wine business as an ocean liner: without the engines it would go nowhere.’
Decanter’s publishing director Sarah Kemp gave the final tally of entries as 12, 252. ‘This is 11% more than last year and it’s a huge endorsement from the world’s wine producers,’ she said.
‘We had one-fifth of the world’s Masters of Wine judging the Awards, and the judges came from over 25 countries,’ Kemp added.
With another statistic, Spurrier remarked on the consistency of the judging process. 67.96% of wines won an award in 2011, compared with 62.5% for the first Decanter World Wine Awards in 2004.
‘The figure is creeping up,’ he said, ‘That’s not because the judges are being more forgiving but because the wines are getting better.’
Wine producers’ representatives at the Decanter stand at the London trade fair said winning a medal was vital to make a wine stand out in a crowded market.
‘It’s good both for the on-trade and the retail trade,’ Jo Thompson of Bodegas Chivite said.
Chivite won the White Northern Spain Regional Trophy Under £10 for its Baluarte Verdejo 2010, and Thompson said this would give the wine a considerable boost in the burgeoning number of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars in the UK.
New Zealand has won its biggest-ever number of awards this year – 121 medals
This includes the Regional Trophy for New Zealand Sweet Wine for the Seifried Winemakers Collection Sweet Agnes Riesling 2010 – the fifth time the wine has won.
David Cox, head of Wines of New Zealand in the UK said, ‘These medals do make you stand out when there is so much choice. It’s an objective quality assessment.’
See the full Decanter World Wine Awards 2011 results
Written by Adam Lechmere
