The Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards 2018 Shortlist Announced
Following a demanding summer reading and assessing over 600 submitted pieces of work, the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers Awards judging panel met on Wednesday 18th July at Maisons Marques et Domaines headquarters in London to determine the shortlists of the entries in the fourteenth Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards.
The panel, comprising a mix of previous winners, journalists, editors and picture editors, overseen as always by the inimitable Chairman of the judges Charles Metcalfe, spent hours in rigorous debate assessing the entries in depth, carefully considering each addition to the shortlist until they had agreed on the best entries from an extraordinarily strong field.
“I was impressed by the breadth of the subject matter covered, some really original research and stylish writing.” commented Richard Mayson, while Joanna Simon delighted in “discovering some outstanding new writers whose work I look forward to following in future”. This thought was echoed by Ella Lister who highlighted the “new and knowledgeable writers whose enthusiasm is infectious”, yet also reinforced the continued quality of “authors I already admire”.
Entries came in from around the world in a multitude of guises, in many cases showing incredible levels of detail and dedication to the subject matter, and as a result John Stimpfig saw “at the top end, some superlative quality”.
It was not just the written entries that impressed the panel, “this year was a standout for me in the Artistry category, with a truly global selection of entries reflecting a wide range of personal styles and approaches to the theme, making the judging so much more difficult than previously.” commented Victoria Hall.
Richard Billett, Managing Director of Maison Marques et Domaines spoke on behalf of Champagne Louis Roederer when he said: “We are delighted to see that in its fourteenth year, the LRIWWA continues to attract entries from all over the world, in a wide range of categories and of a quality that has engendered lively debate among this year’s panel of judges. We are proud to be the sponsor of such a well-respected and truly international competition.”
An invitation-only Awards Ceremony will be taking place to announce the winners in London, on Tuesday 4th September 2018.
As always, we are hugely grateful to our generous sponsors without whom these internationally recognised Awards would not be possible.
Champagne Louis Roederer and the 2018 judges are delighted to announce this year’s shortlist as follows:
RAMOS PINTO ONLINE COMMUNICATOR 2018
· Sarah Abbott MW
· Tim Atkin MW
· Andrea Frost
· Jamie Goode
· W.Blake Gray
· Kelli White
CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER ARTISTRY OF WINE AWARD 2018
· Frances Andrijich
· Johan Berglund
· Thierry Gaudillère
· Jerónimo Heitor Coelho
· Michel Joly
· Adrian Lander
· Mick Rock
CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER EMERGING WINE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2018
· Bianca Bosker
· Hannah Fuellenkemper
· Tom Jarvis
· Esther Mobley
· Sophie Thorpe
DOMAINE FAIVELEY INTERNATIONAL WINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018
· Raymond Blake
· Nina Caplan
· Victoria Moore
· Robert Walters
DOMAINES OTT INTERNATIONAL FEATURE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2018
· Tim Atkin MW
· Felicity Carter
· Alice Lascelles
· Elin McCoy
· Simon Woolf
MAZZEI INTERNATIONAL WINE COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR AWARD 2018
· Tim Atkin MW
· Elin McCoy
· Michael Fridjhon
· Andrea Frost
· Robert Joseph
· Guy Woodward
PIO CESARE FOOD AND WINE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2018
· Poh Tiong Ch’ng
· Dan Keeling
The Judges
CHARLES METCALFE – CHAIRMAN
Charles’ past careers as a tour guide, security guard, freelance cook, investment analyst and opera singer were the perfect preparation for co-founding Britain’s second consumer wine magazine (Wine International) and the International Wine Challenge. He served a 12-year term as drinks expert on Richard & Judy’s ‘This Morning’ and has presented wine and food on many TV shows. He is also a wine consultant to the Corporation of London. His book, ‘The Wine & Food Lover’s Guide to Portugal’, won the 2008 Louis Roederer International Wine Writer’s Book Award, and he is Honorary President of the Association of Wine Educators.
Charles often tastes (and spits out, of course) 100 or more wines per day, all over the world. He is based near Gatwick, with a wife, children, two cats and a varying number of chickens, and still sings in the shower, the local village hall and, occasionally, at wine tastings.
Victoria Hall – ARTISTRY
Victoria has over twenty years picture editing experience in books & magazines including being Picture Editor of Decanter Magazine for ten years.
Following her MA in Fine art at Chelsea College of Art & Design she has also continued a career as a photographic artist. She has exhibited extensively with work held in numerous collections.
She is now based in Suffolk, where she continues as a freelance picture researcher & running her design business ‘Cluck Cluck’. Victoria has been in charge of the Artistry category for the LRIWWA since 2011.
Ella Lister
Ella Lister is co-founder & CEO of Wine Lister, the ground breaking fine wine rating system. After several years’ preparation, www.wine-lister.com was launched in May 2016, and is home to ratings and information on over 2000 fine wines from around the world. The company has grown quickly under Ella’s watch, now with a team of six people. In addition to the scores themselves, and the objective information upon which they are based, Wine Lister also publishes a wealth of analysis on its blog and in the form of in-depth wine region reports.
Originally an investment banker, then strategy consultant to Octavian wine cellars, Ella has been a wine journalist since 2009, specialising in wine market analysis, and also reviewing the world’s finest wines and profiling the people behind them. She is Auctions & Secondary Markets Correspondent for The World of Fine Wine, and also writes for publications such as Decanter and The Financial Times. In 2013 Ella won the Louis Roederer Wine Writer’s Award for Emerging Wine Writer of the Year. Ella has been a judge in the World of Fine Wine Best Wine List Awards, and has spoken at various conferences globally including Vinexpo and the Hong Kong Wine & Spirits Fair
Richard Mayson
After graduating from the University of Sheffield, Richard Mayson began his career working for The Wine Society, Britain’s oldest and most respected wine club and won the Vintner’s Company Scholarship in 1987. He specialises in the wines of Iberia (especially fortified wines) and has written five books on wine including The Wines and Vineyards of Portugal (winner of the André Simon Award 2003) Port and the Douro (2013) and Madeira The Islands and their Wines (2015 – short listed for the André Simon Award). Richard is Series Editor for the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library. He writes regularly for The World of Fine Wine and Decanter magazine, chairing the Port and Madeira panels in the Decanter World Wine Awards. In 2014 Richard Mayson won the International Wine Feature Writer of the Year from the Louis Roederer Awards.
Richard owns a vineyard near Portalegre in the Alto Alentejo region of Portugal where he is producing three red wines named Pedra Basta, Duas Pedras and Pedra e Alma.
Richard Mayson is a Cavaleiro of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto. He is also Pro-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield.
Margaret Rand
Margaret Rand has been writing about wine for 35 years, and has won several Roederer and other awards in that time. She writes features for The World of Fine Wine, Imbibe, Drinks Business, Gourmet Traveller Wine and winesearcher.com, and is general editor of Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, which sells worldwide in several editions each year. She wrote Grapes and Wines (2000, with Oz Clarke), a book widely used by Diploma and MW students. Her latest book, 101 Wines to Try Before you Die, will be published by Octopus in May. She has edited several magazines in the past, notably Wine, and was launch editor of Whisky Magazine; she also edits many books on wine. She judges at the DWWA every year.
Joanna Simon
Joanna Simon is an award-winning wine writer, presenter and food writer. She is co-founder of The Wine Gang (thewinegang.com), wine expert for House & Garden online, a judge for Decanter World Wine Awards and other competitions (wine, chocolate, photography) and was wine critic of The Sunday Times for 22 years; she was also one of its cookery writers for five years. She presented the BBC Radio 4 series The Bottle Uncorked, has been editor of both Wine and Wine & Spirit magazines and her best-selling books, published all over the world, include Wine With Food, Discovering Wine, Wine An Introduction, The Sunday Times Book of Wine and Harrods Book of Fine Wine. She tweets @joannasimon, instagrams @joannasimon_wine and publishes wine recommendations, fine wine blogs, restaurant reviews and recipes at www.joannasimon.com.
John stimpfig
Since 2014, John Stimpfig has been the Content Director at Decanter. Prior to that he was a freelance journalist and contributing editor to Decanter and The Financial Times How To Spend It Magazine. He began writing about wine in 1994 and has also written for the The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, Food & Wine, Wine & Spirit International, Investors Chronicle and numerous other titles. During the course of his career he has won several wine writing accolades including three Louis Roederer Feature Writer of the Year Awards. He lives in West Oxfordshire with his wife and three children.
For further information about the competition, or the awards presentation, please contact:
Alex Tilling Champagne Louis Roederer Brand Manager / Maisons Marques et Domaines Ltd
T : 020 8812 3380 E : alexandra.tilling@mmdltd.co.uk
www.theroedererawards.com www.louis-roederer.com #theroederers