The itinerary for the Star Wine List Awards reads more like the dates of a world tour for a major rock band, as it looks to bring sommeliers together in key cities around the world leading up to a Grand Final on June 24 2024.
Star Wine List Awards continues to grow around the world – what are the latest developments for the year ahead?
We are now well into the new 2023-2024 tour which started with our event in South Africa in September in Stellenbosch. It was a lot of fun with sommeliers from around the country – and from around the world with the WOSA Sommelier symposium and SASA Best Sommelier of South Africa taking place at the same time.
The winners in the 2023 South African version of the Star Wine List Awards
As our jury member Marc Almert said – there has been a real development since last year and it’s very rewarding to be present here.
Which new countries are you bringing on board this year and why?
There is quite a few. Ireland, Belgium, Baltics, UAE and France are all new for this year’s tour. And we are going back to New York, Asia, UK and many other European places. We call it our own Eurovision song contest with celebrations all over – just slightly less fancy costumes perhaps.
How do you decide to go to a new country, or city, to host an awards – what criteria do you use?
Some of the venues for the Star Wine List awards in 2023 and 2024
There must above all be an interest from the sommelier community to be part of the awards and to be part of the international community that the awards bring together. There also has to be an internationally recognised quality of restaurants and standard of food and wine service in those destinations. Then we’ll see how we can make it work logistically and financially in order to run a successful awards programme there.
You have a unique judging process in that you only use award winning sommeliers – are you also expanding your judging process and how that works?
We have a straight-forward judging principle, but it’s not easy: Vote for the most exciting wine list in the category. Since we have top sommeliers in the jury we feel that giving them the freedom to rate and debate produces the best outcomes, and it’s never about formulas.
Venues that are listed by Star Wine List are entered automatically and free of charge, providing we have the wine list. All other venues are welcome to enter as well. The international sommelier jury chooses their favourites considering width, depth, originality and value.
We are looking to change and use as many award winning sommeliers as we can. For our inaugural event in Ireland this month we had an all female sommelier judging panel made up of Pascaline Lepeltier, Veronique Rivest, Julie Dupouy-Young and Heidi Mäkinen MW.
The 2022 judging panel consisted of:
Pascaline Lepeltier has been a long standing judge for the Star Wine List awards
- Paz Levinson: Best Sommelier of Americas 2015
- Reeze Choi: Third Best Sommelier of the World 2023
- Nina Højgaard Jensen: Second Best Sommelier of the World 2023
- Pascaline Lepeltier: Best Sommelier of France 2018
- Ronan Sayburn MS: CEO, Court of Master Sommeliers Europe
Any new sommelier judges you have brought on board?
We are adding more and more as the tour grows and we want to have local knowledge – so for example top sommelier Antoine Lehebel is joining the Belgium jury.
We have the UK awards coming up in 2024 in partnership with The Buyer – what changes and developments are you making for the awards next year?
Star Wine List’s Krister Bengtsson and The Buyer’s Richard Siddle welcome guests to the UK version of the Star Wine List awards
We are very happy with the UK awards that have really created a movement – people are already now asking when the can enter the next awards, it’s so much fun to see. We have ideas to expand the day and the programme, we’ll keep you posted.
Are you looking for category partners?
Yes. The awards are free to enter for the restaurants and we rely on great partners. However it’s important to note that the partners have zero influence over finalists or winners – the jury’s integrity is the most important part of the awards’ standing.
For the 2022 awards we were pleased to work with Catena Zapata, Louis M. Martini., Bibendum, Nyetimber, Spier, Chateau Palmer, and CIVB. andAustrian Wine and New Zealand Winegrowers and look forward to working many of those again this year.
As well as the awards Star Wine List also provides a year round service reviewing and promoting wine dirven bars and restaurants in key cities around the world – how many cities are you now covering?
We are in about 36 countries and growing. Sign up to the newsletter to see all the new launches – guides to great wine bars and wine restaurants, all selected by wine professionals.
The remaining venues for Star Wine List’s world tour of awards
But despite our name, Star Wine List was never just about having big lists. Our main critiera to include venues in our guide is this. If a wine lover comes to our city, which venues would we bring them to? It’s all the way from small natural wine bars to bistros and fine dining. Many of them don’t even have a wine list.
How do you put the lists together and decide which ones to include?
Here too we give a lot of freedom to our ambassadors, who are often top sommeliers. The main criteria is: If we come to your city or region, which places would you like to take us to – ranging from small natural wine bars to bistros and fine dining.
You are also offering some premium services for those that subscribe – what are they?
Our premium subscription allows you to view and search more than 2000 top wine lists across the world – which is great both for wine lovers looking for their favorite wines, or for export managers who want to be informed. And we are soon expanding these business services a lot.
- To find out more about The Star Wine List of the Year UK in partnership with The Buyer click here and if you would like to get involved as a partner then please email Richard Siddle at richardsiddle@btopenworld.com.
