Record breaking year as The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships 2019 announces Gold & Silver medal results

Record breaking year as The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships 2019 announces Gold & Silver medal results
https://www.champagnesparklingwwc.co.uk/results/results-2019...

Italian entries double, Canadian entries increase by 95% and first time entries from Bulgaria….

The world’s most prestigious sparkling wine competition, The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships 2019 (CSWWC) is delighted to announce a “record breaking year” with entries up by one-third and a total of 185 Gold & 212 Silver medals awarded in this year’s competition to an incredible 18 countries.

All the Gold & Silver medal winners can be found at the link below

For the first time since the championships began, Italy has overtaken France to claim the largest-ever national haul of medals, with 71 Golds and 92 Silvers, although Champagne once again romped home as the most award-winning region with 61 Golds and 49 Silvers. This year also saw Franciacorta rack-up no less than 26 Golds, which would have been an all-time record for any Italian region at the CSWWC had it not been pipped at the post by Trentodoc's 27 Gold medals! If nothing else these two regions demonstrate the huge, diverse and exciting potential of Italian sparkling wine.

While Franciacorta and Trentodoc went toe-to-toe, Trentodoc's Ferrari and Champagne's Louis Roederer were battling it out for the Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year Trophy. As this is awarded not by any arbitrary system but strictly according to the highest number of Gold medals won, it has always been possible to Identify the recipient as soon as the CSWWC publishes the list of medal-winners, which is why from this year onwards we will be naming the winner simultaneously. With an unbelievable 15 Gold medals, Ferrari is the Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year for 2019! They will be presented with this trophy at World Championships Dinner on the 4th November.

English sparkling wine almost doubled its 2018 tally of Golds, with no less than 16, equalling its best-ever performance of 2016, while establishing itself as third on the national leader board.

While France and Italy continue to dominate in terms of the number of their entries, Italy has nearly doubled its entries in recent years, while France has remained static. There has been an average 75% increase in the number of entries from the USA, Canada, Spain, New Zealand, Moldova, Germany and China.

Tom Stevenson, Founder and Chairman of the CSWWC, declared “Over the last six years I have tried to encourage producers to focus their entries on potential Gold and Silver medal winning wines. That does not necessarily mean their most expensive and prestigious products. Yes, we want to taste prestige cuvées, if they have the potential, but if they consistently fail at the CSWWC and their entry-level cuvées regularly win Gold, then I try to persuade them to save their money and focus on their high-performing entry-level wines. The competition has grown every year, but as each new entrant discovers how highly specialised and niche the CSWWC is, so they understand that deciding what to enter is not the same as it is for one of the big, all-encompassing competitions, thus the growth has been a case of two steps forward, one step back. Until 2019, that is, when we experienced an unprecedented increase of one-third more entries. I hope this means that they get it at last!

"One of the highlights of 2019 was the significant number of top Lambrusco producers who entered. Bad Lambrusco justifiably gets a bad press, but a high-quality brut Lambrusco can be full of bright fruit underscored by ripe tannins, making it a revelation at the table. We have found 7 Gold and 7 Silver Lambrusco this year and I challenge any fizz fanatic who has not been enamoured by Lambrusco in the past, not to at least recognise the difference In quality of our winners.

"Another surprise this year was the Gold and two Silvers that went to a new kid on the block In Bulgaria. Straight out of the starting blocks with magnums of every single cuvée produced. Got to the guy! Exciting finds like this is one of the reasons why the CSWWC exists. Another is keeping track of all the established greats, seeing if they come through the totally blind process with Golds year on year."

The Best in Class, National Champions and World Champions by Style will be revealed at this year’s CSWWC Awards Dinner at Merchant Taylor’s Hall in London on 4th November.

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If you would like any further information or images please do contact me

With best wishes

Rachel
Rachel Davey
Rachel@cswwc.com
T: 07725118093