Merchant to sell directly to on-trade and independents

In New Zealand’s warmer North Island, there is a growing feeling that the best reds are being made not with Cabernet and Merlot, but Syrah. Rebecca Gibb heads to Hawke’s Bay and discovers a battle between winemaking idealism and hard-nosed pragmatism

Mission Estate outpoints Lafite, Latour and Margaux

Agents can win a trip to New Zealand, taking an on-trade customer with them

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

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

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

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

Food Match Awards

Good wines, good prices and a variety of styles, Syrah was one of the stand-out varieties for the New World

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…

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

A big improvement on last year’s medal haul, although with nothing under a tenner, it came at a price…

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

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