This year’s wine writing competition has broken all records, with more than 400 entries. They came from all over the globe including Kenya, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus, Mexico, Norway and China.
The theme – a description of a great (non-edible) pairing for a specific wine – seems to have caught the imagination of all-comers. Our aspiring wine writers include a professor, a dog-trainer, a record-label manager and a squash coach.
Whoever ends up winning, whether the judges’ or readers’ prizes, will really have achieved something.
Our plan is to devote many hours to sifting through them all (once they have been carefully anonymised by Julian Leidy) to decide which ones to publish on the site, unedited to ensure a level playing field, starting next month. As usual we’ll continue to publish the entries we think best until the end of August and in September you will be asked to vote for your favourite, or possibly favourites.
We’ll then publish the results of your votes and the deliberations of the judges – including guest judge, winemaker Alecia Moore aka P!NK. See here for details of the prizes: books from our redoubtable and much-appreciated sponsor Académie du Vin Library and my beautiful handmade Original wine glasses from co-sponsor Richard Brendon – as well of course as memberships of JancisRobinson.com.
But the main prize arguably is the glory of having stood out from this massive crowd of budding wine writers.
And please, contestants, don’t encourage block voting. We’d like our beloved competition, now in its 10th year, to be a fair representation of genuine literary talent.
