Merchant to sell directly to on-trade and independents

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

Over 1,500 wines can be boiled down to this: the hallowed Sommelier Wine Awards Gold List for 2011...

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

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

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

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

Still no Golds for Viognier, though certainly lighter, fresher, more food-friendly wines than in previous years