Brands looking to enter their wines in the 2021 competition are encouraged to enter this week and ship samples by February 26.

The London Wine Competition has one key difference over all the other international drinks competition in that it does not just assess wines for their quality, but also how that quality then stacks up to the price being asked for it and what its bottle and packaging looks like on the shelf. To be able to do that its judges need to have professional wine buying experience, or hold senior positions in the wine industry where those types of decisions are assessments are being made every day of the working week.

The London Wine Competition prides itself on working with top-level judges that each have direct buying responsibilities in their roles. The key individuals in the UK wine industry that collectively have the buying power to list wines from all over the world that are entering the competition. Buyers with the experience of assessing wines on their quality, their value for money proposition and how that is demonstrated through their packaging and design – the three key judging criteria.

Waitrose’s Anne Jones - One of the judges at 2021 London Wine Competition.

Judging Procedure

The wines will:

• Initially, be tasted blind to determine its quality and drinkability. Where appropriate they will also be assessed by variety, style, region, and country.

• Judges will then determine the value score of the wine based on the quality and its retail price.

• The judges will then be handed the bottle or format for them to be able to assess, in detail, the design, label, and packaging and determine how well that matches up to, or complements the quality of the wine and its price point. It is how the product is perceived when placed on the wine shelf among thousands of other wines.

• The judges can discuss the wine as a whole to help allocate scores in the three judging areas however each judge will give its independent score and a weighted average will be taken at the end.

• The Gold winning wines and all special category wines will be re-tasted by the wine judges on the re-judging day to ensure the scoring quality.

Scoring system

The London Wine Competition is based on the following judging formula: Q (Quality Score) + Value Score (V) + Package Score (P) = London Wine Competition Score.

A separate weighted score will be given for each of the three parts of the judging process (Quality gets twice the weight). The scores will be calculated with other judges for the same product on the team to give a final score from which individual prizes will be awarded.

Quality Score: will be marked out of 100

Value Score: will be marked out of 100

Package Score: will be marked out of 100

Once again all wines entered into the competition will be assessed and judged by a leading panel of top-level wine buyers with current direct commercial buying responsibility. The panel also includes wine consultants and experts who are also directly involved in the development of new wine brands or buying wine for commercial resale. 

These are the buying experts that are judging and assessing wines every day in their working lives and are therefore ideally placed to pick out the winning wines for the 2021 competition. They are also ensuring any wine that receives a gold, silver or bronze medal will work on any on-trade wine list and help outlets sell more wine and attract more customers.

Greg Sherwood MW of Handford Wines taking part in the London Wine Competition

More Master of Wine, Master Sommeliers and real trade buyers have been added to the judging panel. Simon Field MW, David Round MW, Barbara Drew MW and two more Master Sommeliers – Yves Desmaris M.S., Svetoslav Manolev MS. View all judges here.

Shelf talker templates: Entrants will now get tasting notes, shelf talker templates with tasting notes and scores when the 2021 results are announced.

This is the last call to enter your wines in the 2021 competition. Submission closes on February 22, 2021.