Neil Beckett is editor of The World of Fine Wine and surely the politest and most self-deprecating wine professional in Britain. Getting up on the stage in the Savoy Hotel to introduce his magazine’s award ceremony for their 2025 Best Wine Lists Awards to more than 200 dinner guests, he began by describing his initiation into the world of hospitality: four weeks in the corner of a restaurant kitchen peeling onions, potatoes and more onions.
He then addressed a room full of guests from around the world who had achieved considerably higher status. He began by highlighting the role of skilled sommeliers who have to face a table of undecided diners; of their ability to intuitively match disparate foods with appropriate wines; and the way they handle the occasional difficult customer. He then turned his attention to the bravery of restaurateurs as they compile their often extremely personal wine lists; to their vision; and to their commitment to ensuring that their wine list excites and amuses customers and above all generates enough profit to ensure their restaurant’s financial wellbeing.
The audience, from the UK, Spain, Austria, the US and South Africa, lapped it up, as well they might. They represented many of the world’s top restaurants (see the list of winners and runners-up below) and therefore an increasingly important conduit for the world’s wine producers as sales to collectors and private customers slow.
Evidence of this was presented vividly in an email from Stephen Browett, owner of London fine wine trader Farr Vintners, who admits, ‘the wine trade is in the doldrums at the moment for sure – as I think are the sales of all luxury goods. China has completely stopped buying. US sales are down from 20% of our turnover to 5% due to Trump tariffs and the uncertainty surrounding them. Wine investment has become a very weak market because of new vintages being too expensive and prices falling. Trophy wines such as Petrus and Le Pin and the kind of wines that were bought by collectors more than drinkers are not selling either.’
As if to underline this, there came an email from one of Farr’s counterparts Fine + Rare offering 45 different small parcels of grand cru white burgundy (three bottles of Leroy 2000 Corton-Charlemagne are yours for £20,000). These are wines that not long ago might quickly have found a home in some private cellar but for the time being remain unsold.
Restaurants, in contrast, continue to be busy. All have their own challenges. In the UK all face price resistance from their customers; higher National Insurance contributions; and, rather specifically, beef price inflation. But many remain extremely popular, especially those in the capital cities. Offering a special wine list has become a central part of virtually all the successful ones.
Competing for orders
Tom Platt, CEO of Liberty Wines, a company that has always focused on selling to the hospitality industry rather than to private consumers. He’s now finding his £50 million turnover under increasing pressure from wine companies that previously specialised in private sales.
‘They are looking at ways to get their wines to restaurants or other customers. I am seeing a little more on the competition side, but what I really see is customers prioritising customer service, education and training, and trips and events. There may be a lot more wine available in the market, but in a consolidating market where service and education play such a key role, having an allocation of a sought-after wine isn’t really enough.’ (For Liberty’s role in creating wine trips for sommeliers, see Expanding somms’ horizons.)
Platt followed this up with a couple of caveats. Firstly, that restaurateurs are looking to consolidate their number of suppliers, not adding a new one just to get a particular wine which would mean one more delivery to co-ordinate, another invoice to receive, another payment to run, all the time taking time away from servicing their own customers. Then, of course, there is the perennial concern that restaurants are considered to be slow payers. They can become, very readily, a credit risk.
What’s behind restaurant wine mark-ups
The fine wine market and the restaurant sector are substantial. Combined, they reached sales of £58 billion globally in 2024 according to the first-ever Fine Wines and Restaurants Market Monitor produced by management consultants Bain & Co, with Claudia D’Arpizio, partner and lead author, commenting that ‘fine wines stand at the crossroads of luxury, celebration and investment.’
What both the wine trade and restaurant wine service share is a similarity in cost structure: how the high gross margins are whittled away, primarily in labour costs. As chefs in the kitchen require multiple pairs of hands, so wine merchants require a plethora of buyers, sales force, drivers and back-up personnel. Restaurateurs need sommeliers – generally young, fit people able to unload multiple cases of wine as well as those who write the lists. A three- or four-fold multiple on the cost price of a bottle of wine is absorbed quite quickly. (And, unlike wine producers, neither restaurateurs nor wine merchants enjoy the luxury of the sun providing free energy, as it does when ripening grapes.)
Taking the long view
The challenges facing the wine trade and the restaurant business may be increasingly similar too, as Alex Hunt MW of Berkmann Wine Cellars explained. ‘It’s certainly true that the restaurant sector is highly competitive for wine merchants at the moment – but it’s hard to know how much of this competitive pressure one should attribute to a slump in the broker/fine wine merchant market.
‘Champagne is a particular battleground, with some crazy deals flying around for large listings. Is this due to a retail downturn? Or the inevitable effect of the restaurant sector itself shrinking? Maybe both.
‘With hospitality’s bottom line under so much pressure, the temptation to receive a contribution to overheads is clear – but rarely if ever benefits the consumer. If restaurant groups (and it’s mostly groups) were tempted instead to sell better wine at lower prices, perhaps they’d in turn tempt their customers to spend more and leave them with the satisfaction of money well spent. After all, there is still plenty of money around – but after the heady days of 2021/22, consumers are that much more conscious of value. If restaurants become dependent on listing fees to stay afloat, and especially if multiple distributors enter into bidding wars, then hospitality’s woes will simply – and temporarily – be passed back onto their wine merchants rather than being solved through adapting to the times.
‘We are having to work harder for every case sold than at any time since the pandemic. But by focusing on great quality and fair value, we are still managing to find growth, albeit more modest than we might have hoped for.’
A surfeit of blue-chip bottles
This situation seems as true in New York as in London. When I asked John Ragan MS who’s in charge of wine for the substantial Union Square Hospitality Group whether the number of potential visits from wine merchants keen to sell had increased over the past 12 months, his reply was revealing.
‘Wines previously unavailable or strictly allocated are being schlepped around town by salespeople these days. It’s a challenge for buyers to still put forth a balanced wine list as so many blue-chip wines are now available. It’s tempting for buyers to gravitate towards all the fancy wines available to them – only furthering the notion that wine has become too expensive for the average diner to afford. We’ve needed to be very persistent with our buyers to stay focused on value.’
Wise advice for the wine trade
Finally, a word of comfort from our restaurateur son Will. ‘All our sommeliers could have three or four tastings a day if they really wanted! And definitely using trips as an inducement to starting working with a supplier is absolutely increasing. I guess it’s not a huge cost (given that the winery contributes) versus the potentially long-lasting and profitable relationship it could create.
‘The big thing stressed-out and very busy sommeliers look for, however, is good systems and organisation from the suppliers. Getting the right wines, the right pricing, and even small things like invoices sent to the right email address. That is what will make their life so much easier.’
Here is the full list of winners. Missing only is a round of applause from the world’s winemakers!
The World’s Best Wine Lists Awards 2025 Global Category Winners
Wine List of the Year
The Little Nell, Aspen, Colorado, USA
Best Long Wine List (more than 500 wines)
WINNER: Blue Penny Cellar, Constance Belle Mare Plage, Poste de Flacq,
Mauritius
RUNNER-UP: Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Tarrytown, New York, USA
Best Medium-Sized Wine List (fewer than 500 wines)
WINNER: Shell House, Sydney, NSW, Australia
RUNNER-UP: Nobu, Dubai, UAE
Best Short Wine List (fewer than 250 wines)
WINNER: The Wine Bar at The International, Sydney, NSW, Australia
RUNNER-UP: Liath, Dublin, Ireland
Best Micro Wine List (fewer than 100 wines or 4 pages)
WINNER: Kru, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
RUNNER-UP: Bar Miette, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Best Large-Format Wine List
WINNER: Einstein Gourmet, St Gallen, Switzerland
RUNNER-UP: Grill 23 & Bar, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Best Half-Bottle Wine List
WINNER: One White Street, New York City, New York, USA
RUNNER-UP: Spago at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Best Wine-by-the-Glass List (with Coravin®)
WINNER: Wine Bar George, Lake Buenavista, Florida, USA
RUNNER-UP: 67 Pall Mall, London, UK
Best Wine-by-the-Glass List (without Coravin®)
WINNER: Vintage ’78 Wine Bar, Overland Park, Kansas, USA
RUNNER-UP: Ten Minutes by Tractor, Main Ridge, Victoria, Australia
Best Regional Wine List (in the region)
WINNER: Rei dos Leitões, Mealhada, Portugal
RUNNER-UP: Ten Minutes by Tractor, Main Ridge, Victoria, Australia
Best Regional Wine List (outside the region)
WINNER: Acquerello, San Francisco, California, USA (for Italy)
RUNNER-UP: Blue Penny Cellar, Constance Belle Mare Plage, Poste de Flacq,
Mauritius (for France)
Best Spirits List
WINNER: Graycliff Hotel & Restaurant, Nassau, Bahamas
RUNNER-UP: The Pines Modern Steakhouse, Highland, California, USA
Best Sake List (outside Japan)
WINNER: Sushi Nakazawa, New York City, NY, USA
RUNNER-UP: The Chedi Andermatt, Andermatt, Switzerland
Best Dessert & Fortified Wine List
WINNER: Wunderbrunnen, Opfikon, Switzerland
RUNNER-UP: L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Hong Kong
Best Champagne & Sparkling Wine List
WINNER: Affinatore, Milan, Italy
RUNNER-UP: Evett, Seoul, South Korea
Best Organic Wine List
WINNER: La Cuverie de Vosne by Comte Liger-Belair, Vosne-Romanée, France
RUNNER-UP: Potong, Bangkok, Thailand
Best Cruise Line / Ship Wine List
WINNER: The World
Best Airline Wine List
WINNER: Qatar Airways
Best All-inclusive Wine List
WINNER: Alizée Restaurant, Constance Moofushi, Maldives
RUNNER-UP: Ozen Reserve Bolifushi, Kaafu Atoll, Maldives
Best Hotel Wine List
WINNER: The Little Nell, Aspen, Colorado, USA
RUNNER-UP: Wickens at Royal Mail Hotel, Dunkeld, Victoria, Australia
Best Wine Bar List
WINNER: Sticks & Stones A Terroir Bar by Justin Leone, Munich, Germany
RUNNER-UP: The Library, Houston, Texas, USA
Most Original Wine List
WINNER: Ada’s Food + Wine, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
RUNNER-UP: Kupaj Fine Wines and Gourmet Tapas, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Best Designed Wine List
WINNER: March, Houston, Texas, USA
RUNNER-UP: The Lana, Dorchester Collection, Dubai, UAE
Best Value Wine List
WINNER: The Grape Escape, Cheltenham, UK
RUNNER-UP: Bar Miette, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Best New Wine List (since 2022)
WINNER: The Lana, Dorchester Collection, Dubai, UAE
RUNNER-UP: Sticks & Stones A Terroir Bar by Justin Leone, Munich, Germany
The World’s Best Wine Lists Champions’ League 2025
The shortlist for all six Champions’ League awards comprises each of the winners of the Wine List of the Year award since the competition began in 2014:
The Little Nell, Aspen, Colorado, USA—Wine List of the Year 2025
Pappas Bros Steakhouse, Houston Galleria, Houston, Texas, USA—Wine List of the Year 2024
Park Hotel, Vitznau, Switzerland—Wine List of the Year 2023
Domaine Les Crayères, Reims, France—Wine List of the Year 2022
Terroir Tribeca, New York, USA—Wine List of the Year 2021
Park Hotel, Vossevangen, Norway—Wine List of the Year 2020
The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland, Tennessee, USA—Wine List of the Year 2018
Robuchon au Dôme, Grand Lisboa Hotel, Macau, China—Wine List of the Year 2016
Eleven Madison Park, New York, USA—Wine List of the Year 2015
Palais Coburg, Vienna, Austria—Wine List of the Year 2014
Champions’ League Best Overall Wine List 2025
Park Hotel, Vossevangen, Norway
Champions’ League Best By-the-Glass Wine List 2025
Park Hotel, Vossevangen, Norway
Champions’ League Champagne & Sparkling Wine List 2025
Domaine Les Crayères, Reims, France
Champions’ League Best Dessert & Fortified Wine List 2025
Robuchon au Dôme, Grand Lisboa Hotel, Macau, China
Champions’ League Best Spirits List 2025
The Barn at Blackberry Farm, Walland, Tennessee, USA
Champions’ League Most Original Wine List 2025
Terroir Tribeca, New York City, USA
Every Sunday, Nick writes about restaurants. To stay abreast of his reviews, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
