Allan Cheesman is a judge at the 2022 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA).
Allan Cheesman
Allan Cheesman has been in the UK wine trade for over 45 years, spending 31 of them at Sainsbury’s, where he was Trading Director. As he was responsible for the supermarket’s own-label development in the 1970s and 1980s, Cheesman is attributed with demystifying and popularising wine in the UK.
Now semi-retired, he undertakes ad hoc work in the industry and is a non-Executive Director of Vindipendents buying group. He is a member of the WSET Awards Supervisory Board.
A member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino and an Officier dans l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole, Cheesman has lifetime achievement awards from Off Licence News and the IWSC. In 2011, he was awarded the Order of Isabel the Catholic by the King of Spain, the country’s highest civil award, for services to Spanish wines.
He also serves on the Court of the Worshipful Company of Distillers where he is Past Master and Freeman of the Vintners Company.
Cheesman first judged at the DWWA in 2009.
