2018 World’s Best Wine Lists Announced

The World of Fine Wine, in association with Gaggenau, announced the 2018 World’s Best Wine Lists Award winners in a grand ceremony in London last night (12th September 2018) at Vintners Hall.

The big winner on the night was The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland, Tennessee USA – Winner of the Wine List of the Year 2018 and also awarded in these categories: Best Designed Wine List in the World, Best Long Wine List in the World and Champions’ League World’s Best Wine List 2018.

But the UK came away with five prestigious awards, two in the global category: La Dame de Pic London won Best Medium-Size Wine List in the World 2018; 28°-50° Wine Workshop & Kitchen won Best Micro Wine List in the World; and three in the regional categories: Big Easy won Best Designed Wine List in Europe, Sketch won Best Spirits List in Europe and HIDE won Best By-the-Glass Wine List Without Coravin® in Europe.

Renowned as the Michelin Stars for the wine world, The World’s Best Wine Lists Awards are the most prestigious and rigorous, judging over 1,000 restaurant lists worldwide. The World of Fine Wine has assembled a panel of some of the world’s greatest experts, including Masters of Wine and a World Champion Sommelier, to guarantee the credibility and integrity of the competition and to put each list submitted through an intensive judging process.

All award-winning wine lists must reach certain standards in relation to a range of criteria, among which the most important are: the breadth, depth, interest, quality, and value of the wine selection (relative to the nature and size of the list and any specialism); the clarity of the organisation and presentation; the accuracy and completeness of the information for each entry on the list, including origin, producer, wine, vintage, price, and format or serving size; and the suitability of the selection in terms of the cuisine and the establishment.

This year, The World’s Best Wine Lists celebrates its fifth anniversary, with a prestigious judging panel, chaired by Neil Beckett, World of Fine Wine Editor – featuring: writer and broadcaster, Andrew Jefford; award-winning sommelier, Andreas Larsson; publisher and writer Ch’ng Poh Tiong; wine writers Elin McCoy, Francis Percival and Alder Yarrow; sommelier, Luciana Girotto; and wine writer and lecturer Anne Krebiehl MW.

Wine aficionados will be particularly interested in Blackberry Farm – a rural retreat and one of America’s finest luxury hotels, nestled among the Great Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee. It features one of the country’s best-loved and most respected restaurants, worthy of its supreme praise and four top recognitions at the World’s Best Wine Lists Awards 2018. The Barn’s creative cookery is well matched by a superb modern wine list containing over 9,000 selections. Described by the judges as “a phenomenal list that is a joy to explore” with a “wonderful variety and half-bottle selection to die for”.

On the awards, World of Fine Wine Editor Neil Beckett commented: “In its fifth year running, and at its first live ceremony, the World Best Wine Lists Awards was honoured with the presence of guests from every continent apart from Antarctica. I think that the geographical spread of our top winners speaks volumes for the global spread of fine wine and also for the global scope of these awards”.

The Big Winners 

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