Lebanon’s mountainous Bhamdoun region has all you need to make great wine. Henrietta Clancy accompanies three top sommeliers as they visit the area, and ParticIPATE IN the creation of a new vintage at Chateau Belle-Vue’

This year’s Imbibe Live event at Earls Court saw over two dozen sommeliers tasting some of the top wines from this year’s Sommelier Wine Awards competition to find out which bottles received the ultimate accolade. Chris Losh recorded the results

A broad selection of decent, well-made wines, but far fewer for our tasters to get really excited about

The magnificent 2009 vintage left its gilt-edged fingerprints all over this year’s Loire submissions, with spectacular, seductive reds and vibrant Chenin Blancs in particular

Somewhat under-powered compared to previous years, our tasters would have liked to see a bit more evidence of this country’s famous quirky individuality

Food Match Awards

A smorgasbord of styles and an awful lot to get excited about right the way through the medal categories

Despite having definite regional character, the number of Golds for the South of France continues to decrease, with ‘decent’ rather than ‘amazing’ the order of the day

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

A depressing paucity of white entries, but the best red showing since the birth of the SWAs, with high-quality, individual wines right across the price points

Once again, the Rhône was one of the standout categories of the competition, with great wines – red and white – across the region and across the price points

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…

Too few entries. The Lebanese producer Ksara performed well but where were the Greeks and Eastern Europeans?

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

In the past, a By The Glass award has gone to wines that match specific dishes – the theory being that they could be served by the glass as ready matches with a meal.