Harpers regulars Atkin and Woodward go ‘mano a mano’ for International Wine Columnist Award

By Andrew Catchpole

Published: 21 August, 2018

With only two weeks to go until the 4 September final of the prestigious Louis Roederer International Wine Awards, Harpers columnists Tim Atkin MW and Guy Woodward are among the hopeful writers awaiting the final judging decisions.

Both are shortlisted for International Columnist of the Year 2018 for their outstanding work in Harpers.

In a bumper year for Tim, he has been nominated for several awards, including the Mazzei International Wine Columnist of the Year Award 2018, Domaines Ott International Feature Writer of the Year 2018 and Ramos Pinto Online Communicator 2018.

Guy is similarly shortlisted for the Mazzei International Wine Columnist of the Year Award 2018 for his opinion pieces in Harpers, with both facing competition from rival writers including Robert Joseph, Andrea Frost, Michael Fridjhon and Elin McCoy.

Tim and Guy’s work appears each month in Harpers, sometimes supporting and sometimes skewering the idiosyncrasies and issues of the wine and spirits trade, each with a mix of humour and hard hitting comment that attracts a big drinks trade readership both in print and online.

“I’m delighted to have been shortlisted in three categories at the Roederer Awards,” said Tim.

“I’m also chuffed that Guy Woodward is going mano a mano with me in the columnist category as I’m a huge fan of what he writes in Harpers. If one of us wins he's agreed to stand the other a bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne. If we both lose, we’ll commiserate together.”

Guy countered: "In the past I've entered writers into these awards, I've judged these awards, but I'm sure we'd all agree it's about time I actually won one. Particularly since Tim is already generously garlanded with wine writing gongs and seems to have been shortlisted in about half the categories.

"I'd like to think, as a result, I've got the people's vote. That's the first I've heard about a bottle of Roederer being up for grabs between us though. I've seen Tim's cellar, and it's bigger than mine, so I'll be expecting a bottle of Cristal from him if I emerge victorious. I'm sure he'll understand if my contribution, should he win out, is Roederer NV.

"Of course it's entirely possible that the gong may go to one of our non-Harpers counterparts. That would be unthinkable, though…"

The Harpers team is delighted to have two of its opinion-leading writers shortlisted for this year’s Roederer Awards and wishes them both the best of luck with the judges’ final pronouncements.

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