Our seminal wine competition

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28 September 2018 We have a winner!  And 10 runners-up. See We have a winner...

25 September 2018 Just one more day when we will publish the last three competition entries and then much rolling of drums throughout Thursday before we announce the winner this Friday.

18 September 2018 In the run-up to the announcement of our winner (as yet undecided) on 28 September, we are publishing three entries a day over the next week or so, up to and including 26 September. Those who find these short accounts of discovering wine's allure a distraction can access our many other articles from the home page where competition entries are no longer listed individually. Those who enjoy the entries can find an index of them below and can easily access them from the Articles listing.

12 September 2018 A number of respondents to our recent call for feedback expressed frustration at the extent to which competition entries have colonised the home page, so from now on we are removing them from the home page and listing them only on the Articles page. But we will continue to list links to them below as they are published between now and 28 September when we will announce the winner. We hope this solution is acceptable to both those who are enjoying these very varied contributions from all over the world and those who seek a clearer path to everything else we are publishing. 

1 September 2018 We will continue to publish these great tales throughout the month and plan to announce the winner on 28 September. 

25 August 2018 Our competition is now closed. HUGE thanks to the nearly 200 wine enthusiasts around the world who have taken the trouble to tell us about what lit the wine flame for them. We are still sifting through all the entries and will be publishing many more before announcing who has won. 

20 August 2018 We're making it easier to track all the entries we publish – see the list at the end of this article – by presenting and keeping it at the top of the home page. We have been overwhelmed by the response to this competition and will be continuing to publish the best and most intriguing entries well into next month. Please note the final deadline is midnight this Friday 24 August UK time.

13 August 2018 Please note we have received so many entries worth publishing that, for a period, we are going to be publishing not just one entry a day, but two, seven days a week. Please keep visiting. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. 

10 August 2018 We are so appreciative of all these stories. But may I put in a plea for paragraphs, please. They make an article so much easier to read. 

6 August 2018 Please note that entries may not be resubmitted with typos, spellings and/or grammar corrected. I'm afraid we have had so many entries we cannot afford the time to process, read and upload them twice! 

4 August 2018 Today we publish the first of what will be many entries in this competition. We intend to add links to them all below, most recently published first. And we hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have.

30 July 2018 Entries are flooding in. Thank you all. We will begin publishing the best very soon – probably next week. The great majority are from men. Female wine lovers, please think of entering! Also, please attach a relevant JPG or PNG image (it need not be of you, but should be copyright-free) separately from your text. Note that images should be at least 600 pixels wide.  

26 July 2018 It seems to me that for most people who fall in love with wine, there is one particular wine that did it. Or perhaps one particular wine experience. 

For me it was a glass – oh all right then, half a bottle – of a Chambolle Musigny, Les Amoureuses 1959 that I was treated to when a student. (Such wines were very much cheaper then.) For our German specialist Michael Schmidt it was reading his father-in-law’s copy of the first edition of Hugh Johnson’s World Atlas of Wine.

Today we’re launching a competition to find the best account of the seminal wine or wine experience that lit the wine flame for you. We’d also like to know a little bit about you, and would like you to tell us when and where all this took place. Please send your account –  as an attached Word document, please – anything between 250 and 1,000 words, plus a description of yourself and, as a separate attachment, a suitable copyright-free image (preferably landscape-shaped, at least 600 pixels wide and in JPG or PNG format), to editorial@jancisrobinson.com.

You have until 25 August to submit your account, but the sooner the better. We will publish the best, and will announce the winner, decided by us, in September.

The winner will receive a handsome box of six Jancis Robinson wine glasses (as below) worth £200, a special glass polishing cloth (with instructions) plus a young-wine decanter (as above, in smart box of course) worth £100. Up to you what you put in them...

Get writing!

PUBLISHED ENTRIES (most recently published first)

Matt Deller 26 September 2018

Jessica Green 26 September 2018

Ed Verrill 26 September 2018

Harry Gray 25 September 2018

Chris Struck 25 September 2018

Lauren Walsh 25 September 2018

Emily Rosenberg 24 September 2018

Bianca Veratti 24 September 2018

Charles Xu 24 September 2018

Jon Wyand 23 September 2018

Bob Davidson 23 September 2018

P M Chan Hall-Jones 23 September 2018

Tina Johansson 22 September 2018

Florian Minzlaff 22 September 2018

Tim Jackson 22 September 2018

Benedict Healy 21 September 2018

Subu Ramachandran 21 September 2018

Irina Gusinskaya 21 September 2018

Jeannie Boutelle 20 September 2018

Stefan Ożegowski 20 September 2018

Simon Wheeler 20 September 2018

Peter Galvin 19 September 2018

Lee Isaacs 19 September 2018

Brie Cadman 19 September 2018

Riccardo Brighigna 18 September 2018

Şeyma Baş 18 September 2018

Aaron Reeves 18 September 2018

Tim Carlisle 17 September 2018

Persis Johnson 17 September 2018

Samanta Bevilacqua 17 September 2018

Colin Anderson 16 September 2018

Carol King 16 September 2018

Aleksandar Draganic 15 September 2018

Dave Lofstrom 15 September 2018

Misa Labarile 14 September 2018

Gregory Edwards 14 September 2018

Leif Wannerud 13 September 2018

Emily Campeau 13 September 2018

Alexandra Anderson 12 September 2018

Peter McDaid 12 September 2018

Doug Watling 11 September 2018

Neville Blech 11 September 2018

Matt White 10 September 2018

Yuliia Kryvoshei 10 September 2018

Pirom Phadoemchit 9 September 2018

Cynthia Coutu 9 September 2018

Tiffany Vernon 8 September 2018

Alistair Scrutton 8 September 2018

David Smith 7 September 2018

Steve Feletti 7 September 2018

Jonathan Reeve 6 September 2018

Tim Haslam 6 September 2018

Karen Magner 5 September 2018

Andrew Licudi 5 September 2018

Bob Harrison 4 September 2018

Bethanie Butcher 4 September 2018

Zekun Shuai 3 September 2018

Andy Finklaire 3 September 2018

Mari Sanaia 2 September 2018

Anthony Pieri 2 September 2018

Raman J Ghei 1 September 2018

Sorcha Holloway 1 September 2018

Gordon Wilson 31 August 2018

Anthony DeSantis 31 August 2018

Josh Lachkovic 30 August 2018

Melanie Hawks 30 August 2018

Skirmantas Milius 29 August 2018

Stuart Johnston 29 August 2018

Mark Henderson 28 August 2018

Jake Smith 28 August 2018

Tony Harries 27 August 2018

Nick Orwell 26 August 2018

Jeff Vogel 26 August 2018

Diana Robinson 25 August 2018

Jeremy Young 25 August 2018

Hannah DeYoung 24 August 2018

Jonathan Bates 24 August 2018

Richard Slater 23 August 2018

Anne Cowper 23 August 2018

Lisa N Drakeman 22 August 2018

Fintan Kerr 21 August 2018

Mari Foster 21 August 2018

Kathy Merchant 20 August 2018

Ben Hawker 20 August 2018

Geoffrey Dunn 19 August 2018

Sarah Sybaricious 19 August 2018

James Shapiro 18 August 2018

Olga Antoniadou 18 August 2018

Mike Woeste 17 August 2018

Matt Milne 17 August 2018

Henry Johnstone 16 August 2018

Erin Nixon 16 August 2018

Bill Darusmont 15 August 2018

Natasha Hughes 15 August 2018

Stanislav Novak 14 August 2018

Simon Dyson 14 August 2018

Laura Michelon 13 August 2018

Chris Osborn 13 August 2018

Brandon Reinhardt 12 August 2018

Andrew Matthews 11 August 2018

Aaron Bartels 10 August 2018

Mike Denman 9 August 2018

Georgie Fenn 8 August 2018

Antoine Capstick 7 August 2018

Stephen Mandy 6 August 2018

Robert Stanier 4 August 2018