The Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards 2019 Shortlist is Announced

The panel of judges convened at the Maisons Marques et Domaines headquarters in London to determine the shortlist of writers for the 2019 Roederer Awards.  It was a rigorous and demanding summer for the judges, reading and reviewing over 600 submitted pieces of work and those that have been shortlisted should be incredibly proud of their achievements amid some strong competition.

The panel, comprising a mix of previous winners, journalists, editors and picture editors, guided by our long standing Chairman of the judges Charles Metcalfe, spent hours debating and assessing the entries, carefully considering each candidate until they had unanimously agreed on a shortlist of the best entries for each category.

The diversity of the subject matter, the quality of the research and the ability to make even complex subject matter approachable and enjoyable set the shortlisted writers apart from their peers.  The shortlisted writers garnered praise from the judges who noted that the “writing is outstanding, readable and well informed”.  One judge praised a journalist’s ability to “plunge into ultra-geek, then come up for air and make it relevant before plunging back down again”.  Another saw the “heart’s blood’ in one author’s work,  communicating a passion which “made you want to go out and drink those wines”.

The new Pio Cesare Consumer Title Writer category attracted some incredibly diverse entries, the best were “writing about wine in a different way, scrubbing away elitism [and illustrated with] lovely analogies”.

It was not just the written entries that impressed the panel, the calibre of the artistry submissions showed diversity in subject matter with the best showing not only excellence in composition but eliciting an immediate and emotional reaction from the judges.

Richard Billett, Managing Director of Maisons Marques et Domaines spoke on behalf of Champagne Louis Roederer when he said: “The 2019 edition of the LRIWWA has seen a large number of high calibre submissions with a truly global feel – witnessed by the number of shortlisted candidates chosen by our judging panel this year, across a broad spectrum of categories, coming from outside the UK.  It is particularly encouraging to see that this well-established competition, now in its fifteenth year, has continued to consolidate its international dimension, reach and appeal.”

An invitation-only Awards Ceremony will be taking place to announce the winners in London, on Wednesday 18th September 2019.

As always, we are hugely grateful to our generous sponsors; Domaine Faiveley, Domaines Ott*, Marchesi Mazzei, Pio Cesare, Ramos Pinto and Montblanc, without whom these internationally recognised Awards would not be possible.

Champagne Louis Roederer and the 2019 judges are delighted to announce this year’s shortlist as follows:

RAMOS PINTO ONLINE COMMUNICATOR 2019

Tim Atkin MW
Margaret Rand
Matt Walls
Kelli White
Simon Woolf

CHAMPAGNE LOUIS ROEDERER ARTISTRY OF WINE AWARD 2019

Leif Carlsson
Kristian Gehradte
Michel Joly
Ryan Opaz
Jon Wyand

MONTBLANC EMERGING WINE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2019

Kevin Day
Hannah Fuellenkemper
Malu Lambert
Sara Underdown
Peter Weltman

DOMAINE FAIVELEY INTERNATIONAL WINE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019

Rebecca Gibb MW
Rajat Parr/Jordan Mackay
Terry Theise
Janet Wang
Simon Woolf

DOMAINES OTT* INTERNATIONAL FEATURE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2019

Rebecca Gibb MW
Neal Martin
Esther Mobley
Kelli White
Simon Woolf

MAZZEI INTERNATIONAL WINE COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR AWARD 2019

Nina Caplan
Andrea Frost
Cathy Huyghe
Alder Yarrow

PIO CESARE CONSUMER TITLE WRITER OF THE YEAR 2019

Nina Caplan
Rachel Fellows
Karen MacNeil

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.

ANNE KREBIEHL MW

German-born but London-based, Anne Krebiehl MW is a freelance wine writer and lecturer. She is the contributing editor for Austria, Alsace and England for the US Wine Enthusiast and also writes for trade and consumer wine publications such as The World of Fine Wine, Decanter, The Buyer, Falstaff, Vinum, etc.. She lectures, consults and judges at international wine competitions and is a panel chair at the International Wine Challenge. She completed her WSET Diploma in 2010 and was admitted to the Institute of Masters of Wine in September 2014. Anne has helped to harvest and make wine in New Zealand, Germany and Italy.

EMMA SYMINGTON MW

Emma won the Emerging Wine Writer category in the 2014 Louis Roederer Awards for her articles published on the Wine Monkeys blog. After winning the Vintners’ Cup and Vintners’ Scholarship for the top WSET Diploma graduate in 2011 she embarked on the Master of Wine course, becoming an MW in 2015. A  WSET-certified educator, her day job is running Wine Australia’s events and education programme in the UK and she also judges at several international wine competitions. She is excited to judge the 2019 Roederer Awards and is looking forward to reading this year’s entries.

VICTORIA DASKAL

Victoria Daskal is managing editor at The World of Fine Wine magazine and a stage two student at the Institute of Masters of Wine.

Born in Moldova, she grew up in Boston, MA and upon completing the OIV MSc in International Wine Management Victoria came to London to intern and write for Jancis Robinson MW. She has worked in sales for Laithwaites Wine and Slurp, managed AWC Wine Academy and has been freelance writing for over a decade. After completing the WSET Diploma with Merit, she became a WSET Certified Course Tutor and has enjoyed educating individuals, trade, and corporate groups. She is a judge at International Wine and Spirits Competition

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.

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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