WineGB award winners announced

By James Bayley

Published: 10 July, 2023

Much has been made of the strides made by English wines, both still and sprinkling, following the marketing juggernaut that was English Wine Week.

Now with its latest headline-grab, the trophy winners of the WineGB awards have been announced, a sort of BAFTAs for wine, celebrating the very best of English and Welsh wine.

The awards luncheon and ceremony were chaired by Susie Barrie MW and Oz Clarke OBE, at Drapers Hall in London.

Read more: Harpers' Top 25 Sommeliers 2023 announced

Securing the top prize of Best Classic Cuvée Vintage and Top Sparkling was Digby Fine English of West Sussex for its 2013 Vintage Reserve Brut. The estate also claimed the Supreme Champion award.

It was another successful year for Sugrue South Downs, winning the Classic Cuvée prize NV/MV for its Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan MV, Blanc de Blancs for its Cuvée Boz Coldharbour Single Vineyard 2015, as well as being named Best Boutique Producer.

Ridgeview’s Blanc de Noirs 2015 was named Best Blanc de Noirs, and Bluebell Vineyard Estates’ Hindleap Rosé 2016 was awarded the Trophy for Best Sparkling Rosé.

Key wins were also gained by Essex’s Tuffon Hall Vineyard which won Best Still Rosé for its Pinot Noir Rosé, Beatrice 2022 and Sandridge Barton of Devon which picked up the Trophy for Best Still Pinot Noir for its Pinot Noir 2020, which was also the joint winner of Top Still Wine.

There were triumphs for Kent as Gusbourne was awarded the Trophy for Best Chardonnay and named the Joint Top Still Wine for its Chardonnay Guinevere 2021.

Gusbourne was also awarded the trophy for Estate Winery of the Year. Fellow Kent producer Chapel Down scooped the Trophy for Best Still Bacchus for its Kit's Coty Bacchus 2020 and Best Prestige Cuvée for its Kit's Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2016.

Sussex’s Wiston Estate won the Contract Winery Trophy and Hampshire’s Candover Brook was named Best Newcomer.

Two new trophies were introduced this year: the Pioneers’ Trophy, whose first recipient was Ridgeview Sparkling Red Reserve NV and the Sustainable Wine Trophy, awarded to the highest-scoring Sustainable Wines of Great Britain certified wine in this competition – this year’s winner was Gusbourne Chardonnay Guinevere 2021, adding to the wine’s list of accolades.

Susie Barrie MW said: “What’s perhaps most satisfying about chairing this competition each year, beyond the sheer joy of being able to taste and compare so many of the UK’s finest wines, is seeing new names appear on the list of medals.

“For a competition like this to have value, it needs to attract the best of the best, whether new or established, large, medium or small. We want to taste the wines of producers who push the boundaries and are uncompromising in their quest for quality, and we have yet to be disappointed. A huge thank you to everyone who enters the WineGB Awards, I feel so lucky and privileged to judge this competition.”

Oz Clarke added: “We judges get such a thrill when we realise we’ve given medals to wineries we didn’t know, and it’s really rewarding to think we’re setting them on the path to greater things. We have a wine nation that has barely begun to exploit its potential. Every year we have more growers and winemakers brimming over with imagination and ambition. Every year new areas of Britain stand up proud and say, we can do it too. We have the chance in the next generation to become one of the world’s greatest cool-climate wine nations. And this year’s Awards competition shows that we’re going about it in the right way.”

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