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

No Golds, but plenty of positive feedback. A good hunting ground for those of you who ‘do’ esoteric on your list

A decent showing for all styles at the Silver and Bronze levels, though the Gold List this year remained the preserve of pricier tawny and vintage entries

Some great wines and amazing prices. In fact, it was only the category’s persistent (and troubling) lack of fashionability that prevented more Golds being awarded

Superlative examples and high prices on the Gold List, so if it’s bargains you’re after, look lower down!

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…

More than 50 fortified wine brands will represent 14 regions from around the world at the inaugural Big Fortified Tasting – BFT for short – next month.

Some truly outstanding offerings from both the classic areas and unexpected newcomers made this a truly stimulating part of the competition

The shippers claim that their more modern-style vintage ports can work with food. Richard Woodard assembles a team of hungry sommeliers, slaps a cow on the barbie and pulls the cork on 20 of the Douro’s finest recent vintages to find out whether they’re right

Vibrant and fruity, vintage ports are more modern in style compared to 20 years ago – and it’s not just the Americans who think you can drink them young. Richard Woodard dives into the lagar of controversy to find out why there’s no longer any ‘age’ in vintage