Consistent only in its inconsistency, this year’s Aussie Shiraz category was all about the lower price points

Some weird and wonderful blends and, despite the lack of Golds, a generally positive reaction from the tasters

The customers’ love of Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc shows no sign of abating, and the strong performance of this category shows why they may have a point

Riesling is making itself at home in more and more countries, but where is it performing best? Clinton Cawood joins an eager sommelier panel for a top-notch tasting that pits Old World against New World and some acknowledged masters against hungry, young upstarts

While the kick-out rate was high, the wines left at the end served as a blunt reminder to sub-standard also-rans of just how good the pink stuff can be

The Sommelier Wine Awards doesn’t give out trophies per category because we’re worried that tasters will feel under pressure to dispense extra awards in categories where they may not believe the wines are up to it. Instead, in keeping with the whole ethos of the competition, we leave the judgement up to the sommeliers…

With screwcaps to the fore, the quality of the whites (particularly) and the reds here was amazing for the price. Rosé was another matter entirely

With steady rather than spectacular results in 2011, the New World still seems to be struggling to get its head around this most polarising of aromatic grape varieties

The Gris-style, rather than Grigio-style, wines took the honours here, offering value for money and also an impressive food friendliness at a decent price

Food Match Awards

Entries of this much-favoured grape may well have been more or less evenly split between Australia and New Zealand, but this year the latter definitely came out on top

A wide variety of styles, with Australia dominating from East Coast to West. But no Golds this year

Not a vast amount in the way of bargains, but there were some decent, unusual wines here, proving that the New World still knows how to innovate

Some good-value wines but the relatively low ratio of entries to medals suggests a lot of bandwagon-jumping, too

Plenty of medals again for Chile, although the judges were most impressed stylistically with Australia and South Africa