Merchant of the Year Awards
Every year, once the dust settles on the awards, our team picks over the results with the keen analytical gaze of a troupe of architects analysing Roman remains. Their goal: to find the merchants who excelled in this year’s Sommelier Wine Awards and give them a big fat pat on the back in the form of one of our coveted Merchant Awards.
SWA Merchant of the Year 2012 
Boutinot
28 Gold, 51 Silver, 73 Bronze,
1 Critics Choice, 4 Food Match Awards, 2 By the Glass Awards
Another Sommelier Wine Awards, another runaway victory for the team at Boutinot. Yes, they entered a good swathe of wines (you don’t pick up close on 150 medals by entering 160 wines), but their hit rate of entries to medals was excellent. Significantly, too, they didn’t achieve it by flooding the competition with expensive ‘sommelier catnip’ wines – more than half of their medal winners were under £10, which is quite an achievement in the current climate. Though eight Golds over £20 shows that they can ‘do’ trophy wines as well. The company’s stronghold, on this evidence, is Europe, particularly France and Spain, though there are a few New World stars, too, particularly Soldier’s Block Shiraz, which seems to turn out an exceptional performance year after year, and Emiliana’s red and white pair of House Wine Golds – see House Wine Producer of the Year.
European Merchant of the Year 
Bibendum
13 Gold, 31 Silver, 22 Bronze
Something of an eyebrow-raiser, this one, since for many people Bibendum is associated with having a strong portfolio of New World wines. But this award goes to show how the change in the company’s philosophy over the past five years is starting to have an effect. In a sense, this award isn’t purely about numbers. Only eight of Bibendums 13 Golds and 21 of its 31 Silvers were European wines, which, if anything, is below the competition average. But it’s the fact that so many of their Gold and Silver medals were in key regions and at good prices: Beaujolais, Chablis, white Burgundy, Loire, Tuscany, Rueda, Navarra, Rioja, Bordeaux… you could put together a strong wine list just with them and without ever having to spend a fortune.
New World Merchant of the Year 
Hallgarten Druitt
8 Gold, 12 Silver, 14 Bronze
Enotria
16 Gold, 22 Silver, 29 Bronze
2 Critics Choice Awards, 1 By the Glass Award, 1 Food Match Award
A joint award for this category, and for good reason. Both our winners put in strong performances with New World wines, but in very different ways.
Half of Hallgarten’s Gold and Silver medals went to New World wines – very unusual in SWA – and, added to 70% of its Bronzes, meant that a total of 60% of Hallgarten’s medals went to wines from outside Europe, the highest of all the major submitters in the competition. This success was driven in the main by the strong performance of three quality wineries – Carmen and Pérez Cruz from Chile, and Saint Clair from New Zealand.
Enotria was slightly more Europe-driven at the Gold and Silver levels, but had a strong range of New World Bronzes to end up with just over 50% of its medals from the New World – again, outperforming the competition average by some way. Key to Enotria’s award here, though, was not its percentage of New World winners so much as the fact that it had a genuinely impressive spread of medal winners from across the New World (including less well-represented countries such as Canada and the US). Not only that, but it picked up awards from all corners of those countries as well, suggesting real strength in depth.
Great Value Merchant of the Year 
Berkmann Wine Cellars
7 Gold, 21 Silver, 25 Bronze
16 Gold, 22 Silver, 29 Bronze
2 Critics’ Choice, 1 By the Glass, 1 Food Match
Another joint award. And again, for good reasons, since there are different ways of measuring value for money.
With only three of Berkmann’s seven Golds under £10 they might seem an unlikely candidate for this award. But this hit rate is skewed by the fact that two of those Golds were Champagne. A look further down the medals table gives a truer reflection of where they seem to be concentrating their efforts. Twelve of their 21 Silvers and a whopping 16 of their 25 Bronzes were under £10, meaning that, driven by a strong showing of well-priced Italians, nearly 60% of all their medals came under the £10 mark. In a year when value for money was harder to find than ever, that’s impressive.
Enotria had a lower overall hit rate of cheap wines than Berkmann, particularly at the Silver and Bronze level. But a truly astonishing nine of its 15 Gold Medals were sub-£10 – a higher percentage than any other major submitter. Moreover, they came from absolutely everywhere: France, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Argentina. Even Bordeaux. Clearly, there has been some high-quality sourcing here, as two Critics’ Choice Awards, One Food Match Award and one By the Glass Award attest.
Germanic Wine Merchant of the Year 
15 Gold, 13 Silver, 15 Bronze
1 Food Match Award, 1 Critics’ Choice Award, 1 By the Glass Award
The Merchant Awards in SWA are discretionary – meaning that what is on offer tends to change depending on the little blips and trends that we see in that particular year. This is the first time we’ve ever given out a Germanic Merchant of the Year award, but Liberty deserved it for this strong performance.
The company took half of all the top medals in the Germany/Austria category. Its two Golds and three Silvers are all the more impressive since they included not just Riesling medals, but one for a Pinot/Cabernet blend. But the story doesn’t end there. The reason this award is called ‘Germanic’ not ‘German’ is because Liberty also managed two more Golds for a Kiwi Pinot Gris and an Aussie Riesling, and further Silvers for a Gruner Veltliner and another Kiwi Pinot Gris.
Best Newcomer Award 
ItalyAbroad.com
4 Gold, 2 Bronze
We saw a lot of new submitters at this year’s Sommelier Wine Awards, so competition for this award was intense. In the end, it went to ItalyAbroad.com – a Leeds-based company that was new to all of our judges. Key to its success was not just its ability to deliver four impressive Golds from a relatively small overall entry, but to deliver genuinely interesting wines at excellent prices.
Just look at the stylistic spread of the four Golds: a sub-£8 Chianti, a Lagrein from the Alto Adige and a fabulous pair of Sardinians (a white Sussinku and a Critics’ Choice-winning Red Canonau) both around the £11 mark. This is exactly the sort of company that restaurants everywhere should be approaching to add interest to their list.