Decanter has announced its Retailer Awards shortlist for 2020, and Independent Wine is up for two awards: Newcomer of the Year and Italy Specialist.
It goes without saying that we’re absolutely ecstatic to have been chosen, and to be up against such prestigious names like The Wine Society and exciting newbies like Savage Vines. When we launched our business at the end of last year, with the goal of bringing the best Italian wine to the UK, we never dreamed we’d be up for two Decanter Retailer Awards.
We wish everyone in both of our categories the best of luck!
Proud to specialise in Italian wine
We’re up against just three other retailers for the title of Italy Specialist. Not to toot our own trumpet, but it’s a title that we genuinely feel applies to us. Elvira and I travel to Italy regularly to hunt out the best wines – in fact, we’re just back from a 3,000 mile round trip from Edinburgh to Alto Adige. It turns out that not even a global pandemic can stop us from hunting out the best Italian wines. During our trip we did what we always do. We visited family-run vineyards, checked out the cellars and sampled lots of vino – this time with more social distancing in place.
Exclusive agents for incredible Italian wines in the UK
We’re delighted to work with some of Italy’s best small wineries like Francone, Massimago and Ridolfi. In fact, we’ve got exclusive UK rights to some of Ridolfi’s Decanter award-winning wines: the silver medal Brunello di Montalcino and Fiero Super Tuscan, plus the bronze winner Rosso di Montalcino. We’re also proud to stock twelve of The WineHunter’s best Italian wines, as chosen by a panel at the Merano WineFestival. When the results were announced, we already had these bottles in our Edinburgh storehouse. It made us happy to know that our palettes are attuned to some of the top Italian wine experts, and confident that we’re truly bringing our customers the best Italian wines.
Showing a new side of Italian wine
During our trips to Italy we taste hundreds of wines, and only stock the ones that we think are best. We don’t just go for popular names like Prosecco, Pinot Grigio or Amarone; although we do stock them, too. We look for wines that we are proud to sell, and that we want to show off. This means we often choose bottles from lesser-known wine regions like Alto Adige, and up-and-coming grapes like Roero Arneis. Even our crowd-pleasers are different from the expected. For example our best-selling Ca’ Di Rajo Pinot Grigio is an aromatic delight, with flavours of mango, peach and orange blossom. Far from the generic plonk you’d find in the supermarket.
Will we win? Find out on the 7th September!
You can see the full Decanter Retailer Awards 2020 shortlist here. The winners and runners up will be announced live on Monday 7th September at 11am (UK time) on the @Decanter and @Decanterawards Twitter and Instagram stories. We’ve already marked the date in our diary, and can’t wait to find out who’s taking home the prize. However it goes, we’re just honoured to be considered – and want to thank our loyal customers for being with us every step of the way.