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HAT TRICK FOR YOUNG AT IWC

Published:  23 July, 2008

Noel Young Wines was the undoubted champion at this year's International Wine Challenge, as the Cambridge-based merchant walked away with three awards, and became the first small independent in nearly a decade to take the event's most prestigious trophy, the Overall Merchant of the Year. Young, which picked up awards for Website of the Year and Specialist Austrian Merchant of the Year, beat off competition from heavyweight runners-up Majestic and the Wine Society, as well as another small independent, The Flying Corkscrew in Hemel Hempstead, to pick up the top prize. Other big winners at the presentation at London's Hilton Metropole, included Battersea's Philglass & Swiggot, which picked up the hotly-contested London Regional Award, and Waitrose which took the Supermarket of the Year Trophy. Newcomers Stone, Vine & Sun and The Flying Corkscrew also enjoyed themselves, picking up awards for, respectively, Wine List of the Year and Central England Merchant of the Year, in their first full year of retailing; while the Small Independent of the Year trophy went to Edinburgh's Raeburn Fine Wines. On the agency side, Seckford Wines collected the trophy for Agent of the Year, and HwCg took the award for Innovation in Brand Creation. The big loser on the night, meanwhile, was Oddbins. The troubled specialist, which used to have a near-monopoly on the overall Wine Merchant Trophy, lost to Majestic in the High Street Chain Award, and walked away with nothing for the second year in succession.

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