Corks have been popping all over the world this week as the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships hosted its Virtual Awards Week announcing a total of 36 trophies to the greatest sparkling wine producers from around the globe.
The week kicked off announcing the Best in Class winners followed by the virtual audience being able to discover the 13 Regional Champions, 12 National Champions and finishing the week off with the announcement of 7 World Champions, the Supreme World Champion, the Tony Jordan Rising Star Award, The Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year and the Chairman’s Trophy!
For the first time since the competition began, the World Champion Trophy Awards had never been so close with Best in Class winners from around the world batting it out to be crowned with a CSWWC trophy. The judges were delighted to crown Dom Ruinart with the supreme world champion trophy for their Dom Ruinart 2004 Rosé in Magnum. The Chairman’s Trophy, this year went to Carassia for the NV Rosé (for surprising the judges with its impressive performance in the Supreme World Champion taste-off, when it shone beautifully in third position) and The Tony Jordan Rising Star Trophy went to Abrau-Durso Russian Sparkling Wine House (for a quantum leap forward in quality on previous years).
Founder and chair of judges Tom Stevenson commented “Last year was memorable for obvious reasons, but who could have imagined at the start of 2020 that we would still be battling a pandemic in 2021, even though we were even less sure of finding a single working vaccine. Yet we have attracted more than 1000 entries of extraordinary quality into our niche competition for the second year running. The bar was set high from day one and the Trophy count certainly reflects this. However, it is not only our mission to promote world class wines, but also to discover and reward new and exciting wines from established and emerging regions across the world. The biggest surprises for me were Japan, Russia and Sicily. Although Japan received only one silver, it clearly showed the potential this country has for serious sparkling wine and we look forward to a wider range of Japanese entries in the future. Abrau-Durso Russian Sparkling Wine House was a worthy winner of our Rising Star because, frankly, we had tired of tasting their oxidative fizz year after year, but 2021 revealed a change of quality to a brighter, purer style. We were surprised last year when Sicily won two gold medals and four silvers, as it is not the first place that comes to mind when asked to name somewhere with sparkling wine potential, but they took those awards as encouragement and dumbfounded us with no less than five golds and 11 Silvers! In addition to Sicily, I would also like to highlight the incredible breath of medals that have been awarded to Italian sparkling wines this year. This is a country that continues to push boundaries and produce top quality sparkling wines. From the north of Italy in Franciacorta and Trentodoc regions, to Prosecco and Lambrusco, all the way down to Sicily with one particular winery there, AZIENDA AGRICOLA G. MILAZZO, being showered with medals this year!”
All the results can be found on the website:
