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Gavin Quinney scoops Special Recognition accolade at French Wine Awards

Published:  23 October, 2013

Gavin Quinney, the English winemaker who owns and produces wine at Château Bauduc in Bordeaux, has won the Special Recognition Award at the first Harpers French Wine Awards.

Quinney received the honour for the work he has done in giving the wine trade as a whole a fascinating insight into the day-to-day highs and lows of being a winemaker and running a Bordeaux winery.

Quinney has become a one-man publicity machine not only for his own business but for helping to promote French wine overall, Bordeaux wine in particular, and for airing some of the more lively and controversial issues facing French wine in such an engaging and entertaining way.

He has built up such a following online through social media that he has more Twitter followers than prestigious Bordeaux houses and many of the generic French wine bodies.

Quinney, though, has had a difficult 2013 with much of his vintage wiped out by a disastrous hail storm in the summer, but despite the impact on his own winery, Quinney took to Twitter and his own Château Bauduc newsletter to spread news of how the storms had affected wineries across the region, providing as valuable a source of information as the mainstream media and wine trade press.

Quinney is also a regulator contributor to Harpers Wine & Spirit and provides a yearly analysis of the vintage, comparing his own scores with the major wine critics.

His Special Recognition Award was sponsored by Pays d'Oc Wines. Quinney's Château Bauduc wines have been the house wine at Gordon Ramsay's three Michelin-starred restaurant since it opened.

Other winners in the Harpers French Wine Awards were:

Best Supermarket sponsored by Côtes du Rhône Wines

Winner: Waitrose

Finalists: Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's

Best Distributor/Supplier sponsored by Provence Wines

Winner: Les Caves de Pyrène

Finalists: Bancroft Wines, Georges Barbier, Matthew Clark

Best Independent Merchant (Large)

Sponsored by Les Grands Chais de France

Winner: Cambridge Wine Merchants

Finalists: Berry Bros & Rudd, Laithwaite's

Best Independent Merchant (Small)

Sponsored by Yvon Mau

Winner: Taurus Wines

Finalists: James Nicholson, Raeburn Fine Wines, Lea & Sandeman

Best Restaurant French Wine List

Sponsored by Chablis

Winner: The Green Man & French Horn

Finalists: The Boundary Restaurant, Club Gascon/Cellar Gascon, Le Gavroche

Best Regional Restaurant French Wine List (Regional)

Sponsored by The Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins du Centre Loire

Winner: La Garrigue

Finalists: Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, Hotel TerraVina

Best French Wine Critic

Sponsored by InterLoire

Winner: Andrew Jefford

Finalists: Jane Anson, Rose Murray Brown MW (The Scotsman), Jancis Robinson MW

Best Ambassador/Communicator for French Wine

Sponsored by Plaimont Producteurs

Winner: Gerard Basset MS OBE

Finalists: Louise Hurren, Ronan Sayburn MS, Doug Wregg

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