How the Challenge Works

Awards to aim for...

The IWC presents a number of awards which are based on information that we collate from the wine and the entries. Here are a few details of how to make the most of these awards and how you can enter them. There is no extra cost involved, the wine just needs to fulfil certain requirements. Please ensure that when you submit your wine you tick or complete the relevant boxes on the entry form.

Wine awarded Tophy status

Regional Trophies

On Trophy judging day at the IWC we re-taste all of the gold medals. Firstly we select all wines by grape variety, style and region. So for example we will select all the Gold medals for Shiraz from the Barossa region in Australia. These wines are then tasted against each other to see if any of them are of higher quality than the selected wines. Please note we do not have any fixed Trophies as we only award Trophy status to those wines that are significantly better than their contemporaries.

Wines considered to be of an exception standard are then awarded Regional Trophies, for example the Trophy for the Barossa Region in Australia. We do this for every wine region from around the world that has attained a Gold medal status. If a wine is the only wine from a specific country to win a Gold medal the same process is applied.

National Trophies

We then take all the Regional Shiraz Trophies awarded wines from Australia to see if any one wine stands out from the others in this category. This wine will then be awarded the Australian Shiraz Trophy. Those that are considered but don’t progress further retain their regional Trophy Status.

The next stage is to take all the Australian red National winners from all grape categories and taste them against each other to award the Australian Red Trophy.

International Trophies

We then take all of the National Winners from all of the countries that have a Shiraz/Syrah Trophy to decide if any wines stand out in this category. This wine is then awarded the International Shiraz Trophy.

Champion Whites

All international Trophies are then tasted against each other to produce the Red, White, Fortified, Rosé, Sweet & Sparkling Champion wines of the year.

Great Value Wines

Great Value status is awarded to wines that fit certain criteria. All wines must be nationally available in the UK and therefore have a UK price when submitted into the competition.

This criteria is set differently for Still wines, Sweet & Fortified wines and Sparkling wines.

Still Wines

There is an award for Red and White Great Value wines. They must have more than 120,000 bottles available to the UK market and be in sufficient quantity in June of each year (When we announce the GV awards)

Price categories for still wines are as follows:

Under £6.99
£7 to £11.99
£12 to £14.99

Wines are then re-tasted on trophy day at a separate tasting. All wines with Gold or Silver status are included in this section. All GV winners in each price category are then re-tasted to detect an overall Champion Great Value award for each style.

The IWC will then review the scores of the GV tasting and check that all the criteria have been met.

Fortified and Sweet Wines

The criteria has slightly different price bands:

Under £9.99
£10 to £14.99

Fortified and sweet wines must be rationally available and have more than 6000 bottles available to the UK Market

Sparkling Wines

Again the criteria is slightly different price bands:

Under £9.99
£10 to £14.99
£15 to £22.00

These wines must have more than 60,000 bottles available to the UK market Depending on changes to UK duty, VAT and taxes we review these threshold prices every year.

Own Label Awards

Wines must clearly identify on the label the name of the range or the store that these represent. Customers must know that these are part of a range of wines produced exclusively for the store or merchant. ‘Exclusive to’ and ‘specially selected’ for are allowed as long as the name of the store is clearly shown on the label.

To qualify for this award a minimum of 50 wines must be submitted from the range.

The IWC will then review all the scores and award points for medals and bonus points for Trophies and GV awards. Also bonus points will be attributed to the number of countries within the range, the different price points within the range and the volume of wines submitted against the whole range.

Then we produce a statistical analysis of the results to produce an average score for the whole range. The highest average score wins the Own Label Range of the Year.

Planet Earth Awards

Wines that qualify as Sustainable, Biodynamic, and Organic production go forward for these awards. The IWC selects the best wine in each class. After the competition we check and ask for independent and country or international standard specific certification to prove their status.

Fiartrade Awards

These awards are for wine producing regions which are officially recognised as being part of the Fairtrade Association. Please ensure your wine qualifies for this certification before including yourself in these awards. Wines are judged on their individual merits and the Fairtrade Award is presented to the highest quality wine with Fairtrade certification.

James Rogers Trophy

This Trophy is awarded for high performance over the previous 5 years of the IWC. We analyse all the top performers based on entry results from the IWC. Points are awarded for medals and Trophies. We are looking for consistency over a 5 year period. The winner can only win it once every 5 years.

Len Evans Trophy

This Award is presented to the best wine in the IWC that is in its first year of production. The wine must be a new blend and label, or from a recently acquired single vineyard site.

Winemaker of the Year Awards

We award winemakers of the year for Red, White, Fortified, Sweet & Sparkling winemakers. We take all the entries submitted into the IWC from each producer and award them points based on their performance. Wines attain points for all medals and then bonus points for any Trophies awarded. Also we penalise any wines submitted that do not win any award at all, therefore these count against the final score.

Wines need not necessarily be submitted by the winery directly. Submissions by UK importers on their behalf are also valid.

We then run a rather complicated algorithm to show the best performers and average out their scores based on performance against volume of entry.

What happens to left over wine?

With four to six bottles of each wine sent by merchants and producers entering the IWC, some are inevitably left over, even after the numerous rounds of tastings and allowance for faulty wines. The IWC gives hundreds of cases of wine to selected charities and charitable organisations, including Barnardos, the British Red Cross, the Royal National Lifeboat Association and the Cai Dae Trust. Additional wines that remain are auctioned off and proceeds are given to The Wine & Spirit Benevolent Society and Wine Aid.