London Wine Fair and the drinks business partner on 2024 Wine Buyers Awards

A partnership between the drinks business and the London Wine Fair on its 2024 Wine Buyers Awards will celebrate excellence in wine buying across all sectors.

The awards, which recognise the UK’s best professional wine buyers, also acknowledges the influence they have on creating trends and offering value, quality and innovation across their ranges.

There will be two new awards for 2024, which recognise that buying is often a team effort: Best Off-Trade Wine Buying Team and Best On-Trade Wine Buying Team.

The drinks business will partner with London Wine Fair on the latter award, as well as The Supermarket & Multiple Retailer Buyer Award.

The judging panel comprises a dozen industry luminaries including: Angela Mount, wine consultant and former Head of Wine Buying for Somerfield; Helen McGinn, drinks writer and presenter and former wine buyer for Tesco; Ronan Sayburn MS, CEO for Court of Master Sommeliers Europe; and Hal Wilson, co-founder and wine buyer, Cambridge Wine Merchants.

There will be seven award categories in total, the others comprising: Independent Merchant Awards (Large Independent Merchant Wine Buyer and Small Independent Merchant Wine Buyer); On-Trade Awards (On-Trade Wine Buyer, single venue, and On-Trade Buyer, multiple venues); Online Specialist Wine Buyer Award; Rising Star Wine Buyer Award, which will recognise the achievements of those 35 years and under, operating in any of the five channels. And the Overall Wine Buyer of the Year.

Nominations are now open here; the deadline for entries is 12th January 2024 and the shortlist will be announced at the London Wine Fair launch party at the end of February.

The winners will be announced on Centre Stage at the London Wine Fair on Tuesday, 21 May.