31 days of German Riesling competition winners revealed

Industry body Wines of Germany has announced the winners of this year’s 31 days of German Riesling competition held in July.

Over 100 independent wine merchants and restaurants from over 60 UK cities participated in the challenge, aided by the lifting of lockdown restrictions.

Those businesses taking part were given new point of sale kits and digital assets in order to fully showcase the German grape variety for the whole 31 days.

Wines of Germany said the social media influencer campaign reached a total of four million, and those involved sold as much as six times the volume of German Riesling in July compared to the previous month. On average, four new listings were added to shop shelves and restaurant wine lists.

The ninth edition of the competition was held under exceptional circumstances and entries were noted for their ingenuity.

For example, Bristol’s Box-E restaurant reopened as a bottle shop on 4 July, stocking 10 different German Rieslings to try and buy. German wine importer The Wine Barn offered a direct to consumer campaign with three different mixed cases of German Riesling available, while the Humble Grape held a winemaker chat on Instagram live and used its app to share educational snippets.

London’s Jascots also hosted online masterclasses, organising three weekly Riesling masterclasses, as well as an online blind tasting competition. Warwick’s Wine Pool also used technology in its entry, offering a mixed case with wines sourced from five of Germany’s wine regions. It later put on a Zoom tasting with customers to educate them about the bottles.

The winners and runners up in the off-trade, on-trade and online merchant categories are as follows:

Winners:

Brigitte Bordeaux Wines – off-trade.

Humble Grape – on-trade.

The Wine Barn – online merchant.

Runners up:

Wine Poole Ltd – off-trade.

BOX-E – on-trade.

Jascots Wine Merchants – online merchant.

Nicky Forrest, managing director of Wines of Germany UK commented: “It was an exciting year to see retailers jumping straight in to celebrate 31 Days of German Riesling and adapt their way of promoting wine in line with what the country was experiencing. Also to see restaurants who opened up their doors for the first time in months able to join in and bring some brilliant creativity to the campaign. There was an increased focus on ecommerce and it is clear that online channels will only continue to grow.