Winner of the Provence Rosé Perfect Serve competition

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

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…

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.

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

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

Food Match Awards

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

A poorly performing category in previous SWAs, this year sparkling rosé managed to provide a string of good examples across all the price points

A somewhat muted performance after the high medal count of last year, with the much-vaunted Galicia, in particular, something of a disappointment in 2011

Yes, it’s chic. And yes, it’s elegant. But its higher price means that if you want to sell rosé champagne during an economic downturn, you’re going to have to work harder than ever. Natasha Hughes reports

Rosé champagne, like all things pink, is on the up, but it doesn’t come cheap. Imbibe’s tasters put an array of blushing hopefuls to the test in search of value for money. Susanna Forbes reports

A hot category with the customers, rosé continued to attract a good number of entries. However, this seems still to be a category that has a fair bit of work to do to realise its potential

With wines from France, Luxembourg, Italy and England, as well as the New World, there was a wider variety to choose from here than in the past

Tavel is rosé – but not as most of your customers would know it. Our panel get to grips with one of the world’s most interesting and unusual wine appellations