Reading · MidWeek Wines Guild

I subscribe to Decanter magazine and I must say I always look forward to the ‘Decanter World Wine Awards’ special Issue which usually comes out around this time every year. So I was delighted when the magazine dropped through my letterbox.

Described as the world’ largest wine competition with 245 expert judges from 36 different countries descending on London’s Docklands every May to taste and discuss around 70-75 wines every day over the period of a week. The total number of entries from the world’s wine producers was 17,000.

This year 2026 brought with it many problems that hit the wine world hard, tariff barriers, rising costs, transportation, changing consumer tastes, including health messages about alcohol to name but a few.

This is just a brief overview of the awards simplified.

Each Judging Panel includes A regional chair and two Judges, often a mix of wine buyers, sommeliers, critics and sometimes winemakers.

These panels are composed of people with regional knowledge and technical expertise.

Although the process is strictly blind, they do know the region, style and retail price, all wine is sampled using the same glasses (Premium Riedel glassware).

First Round:

All wines tasted blind by their regional panel, Gold and Silver winners are re-tasted and confirmed by the regional chair and all wines scoring 94 or above are re-tasted by the Co-Chairs.

Platinum Wines

Gold Medal winners move onto a second round to compete for Platinum status and possibly ‘Best in Show’

Best in show and top Gold

Consist of Platinum winners that are marked for ‘Best in Show’ which are tasted again by a panel of five Co-Chairs who select the best 50 show wines.

All value Gold wines (retailing at under £15) are re-tasted to select the 35 Top Value Golds of the year.

Keith pointed out this excellent YouTube video - click here for a look behind the scenes at DWWA, the world’s largest wine competition.

In the 2nd part of this article Richard will describe how to search and find the award winners. But here are some Top Value Golds (under £15)

Spain - Jaume Serra, Cava Guarda Brut Nature, Catalonia, 2022 (11.5%)

France – Cave de Cruet, Coeur de Combe Roussette de Savoie 2025 (12.5%) Sainsbury’s £14

Balkans – Marks and Spencer, Found Kratosija Tikvesh, Macedonia 2024 (2024) Ocado £9

New Zealand – Asda, Exceptional Noble Riesling Canterbury 2017 (8.5%) Asda £10

Italy – Melini, Tesco Finest Chianti Classico Riserva, 2021 (13.5%) Tesco £11.75

Lastly, sustainability is a key topic for all wine related activities, including the DWWA:

All cardboard is packaged and recycled

All glass is crushed and recycled

Leftovers are sent to Biffa’s anarobic digestion plant at Cannock, near Birmingham, to create biogas for the electricity grid and bio fertiliser.

Breaking down and reusing undamaged cardboard for boxing up tasting flights.

Switching from plastic bags for blind-wine service to reusable cotton bags.

So there you have it, an extremely brief description of the DWWA, not all the wines had prices, so if you need to know more you’ll have to look them up and investigate further.

The full DWWA results are available at awards.decanter.com. This gives very full search facilities - where you can search for a wine, producer or stockist. All this information is available to everyone - you do not need to be a Decanter subscriber.

Below is the home page, where I have entered, as an example, search values for the country and wine colour. So there are 33 awards for red Austrian wines, which you can read by scrolling down.

Or another very useful search would be for a stockist …

Here, searching for UK & Asda, produces the following medal summary, and, by scrolling down, the specific wines.

So when you next see a 25% discount at your local supermarket, you could search and find all their medal winning wines! Often award stickers are put on the bottles, or shown on information boards on the shelf.

And at Press Tastings the booklets always indicate any medal awards for a given wine, and Guild tasting reports would pass this on to readers.

I don’t know how many wines each stockist entered, but a DWWA is prestigious, so most stockists take this competition very seriously. Happy browsing!

Paul’s Pick: Co-op Irresistible Malbec, Bio Bio, Chile 2026 13.5% £9.50.

Decanter Gold Medal Winner . 95 points. The real deal- imagine fresh blackberries and blueberries, a winner at any BBQ and unmatched quality at this very fair price. Highly recommended.

Richard’s Pick: Premier Idylle Vouvray Brut, Famille Bougrier NV, 12%, The Wine Society, £12.50.

Decanter Gold Value Medal. 95 points. A baked apple, zingy traditional method sparkling 100% Chenin Blanc. Tried at a Loire tasting and immediately bought some. Still in stock!

Keith’s Pick: Taste the Difference Grillo, Sicily Italy 2025 13%, Sainsburys £8.50

Decanter Gold Medal 95 points. A fresh aromatic and fruity wine from now Sicily’s second most planted grape. Perfect match for seafood, Mediterranean vegetable dishes or simply as an aperitif. Even cheaper Nectar price!

Dave’s Pick: Trapiche Pure Fairtrade Malbec, 13.5%, Co-op £10

Gold Winner 95 pointsThis is all about the fruit, lots of ripe juicy cherries, plums, blackberries, hint of black pepper cloves and slightly floral (violets). Unoaked, tannins are noticeable. As it says on the label a pure Malbec, great value.

Some years back I stopped my print subscription to Decanter as I felt it was concentrating on higher end wines beyond my price points. Now I feel it is more balanced.

Dave has a print subscription, so gets early access to the magazine, delivered, old school, through his letter box.

I now have a digital subscription, and can access online, including past articles and reports etc, or via the Decanter App on my iPad mini - which gives a magazine like experience.

Keith & Paul access Decanter (and many other magazines) online via their respective local libraries, so there is a likelihood that you will be able to access Decanter online (via the PressReader or Libby apps). Check with your local library.

And, of course, many libraries have hard copies of magazines in their reference or reading rooms.

Thanks for reading! MidWeek Wines Guild is free to all readers.

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NL 69: Decanter World Wine Awards 2026

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