Tom Cannavan wins the Roederer Award
It's now over two weeks since I won the Roederer International Award for Wine Writing.
So many people have told me that I should celebrate by announcing this honour on wine-pages, that I've buckled under the pressure. Please forgive the bit of unabashed blowing my own trumpet that follows!
Roederer Awards 2008
In a glittering ceremony at London's Somerset house on Monday 8th september, the Louis Roederer International Wine Writer's Awards were presented by Frédéric Rouzaud, Managing Director of
Champagne Roederer and Steven Spurrier, the Chairman of Judges. The room was packed with the great and the good of British wine writing, many of whom were themselves listed for an award.
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140 writers from around the world were considered for the awards, and the jury (wine writers, members of the wine trade and guest judge, James Mates, senior correspondent for ITV News) whittled
this down to 24: four shortlisted nominees in each of six categories: UK Regional Wine Writer of the Year; Online Wine Writer of the Year; Champagne Writer of the Year; Wine Feature Writer of the Year;
Wine Columnist of the Year; Wine Book of the Year.
Roederer and the big moment
Before the awards, Champagne Roederer revealed new packaging for their range of wines (very discreet) and more importantly, put them on tasting with a selection of matched Canapés. This was perhaps not
the occasion for too academic note taking, but some impressions will follow in a seperate article. The Vintage 2002 was outstanding, and Cristal 1996 served from magnum suitably impressive too.
The first award of the night was for UK Regional Wine Writer of the Year, and I was delighted to see Will Lyons of the Scotland on Sunday take the award. Thankfuly, to get it over with quickly, International Online Wine
Writer of the Year was next and was a tough category with Jancis Robinson, Jamie Goode and hugely talented trade writer Chris Losh joining me in the frame. To say I was surprised and delighted to hear my name being
called as the 2008 winner is an understatement.
The photo right (courtesy of Jim Budd) shows me accepting the award from sponsor Champagne Roederer's Deputy Managing Director, Michel Janneau. The honour of being chosen by the jury is the real prize of
course, but along with the title comes a very nice cheque, a magnum of Cristal and a beautifully engraved silver Champagne bucket.
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Wine-pages had a double reason to celebrate however, as our own Tom Stevenson was named as International Champagne Writer of the Year for his work on wine-pages and in Decanter and World of Fine Wine.
Other award winners were Anthony Rose who is Columnist of the Year, Andrew Jefford is Feature Writer of the Year and Charles Metcalfe and Kathryn McWhirter who shared the honours for Wine Book of the Year for their
book on Portugal.
It really is a tremendous honour to have picked up the world's major wine writing award, especially as it is for my work here on wine-pages.com. November of this year is the 13th anniversary of the
first rendition of wine-pages going online. What a nice way to celebrate. My thanks to the judges, and to sponsor Champagne Roederer.
