This year’s Wine Merchant Top 100 winners have been announced.
Congratulations to all the producers and importers who made the cut this year. These are the 10% of wines that came out on top after a tough day of judging in April, in which 36 independent merchants tasted nearly 1,000 wines.
We’ve presented the winners according to style in the list below. The price we quote is the recommended retail price as supplied by the entrant.
We’ve numbered the wines from 1 to 100 as this is the system we’ve used for our stand at the London Wine Fair, to make it easier to navigate. These numbers do not indicate any position within our Top 100.
We’ll be explaining why these wines were this year’s winners in the supplement we publish in July, along with all of our highly commended wines.
Sparkling Wine
Sparkling Wine Trophy : Grande Réserve, Premier Cru, Pierre Mignon, Champagne, France NV, £35.74 (Alliance Wine)
Best Value Sparkling Wine Trophy : Llopart Corpinnat Brut Panoramic, Penedès 2018, £26.75 (Hallgarten & Novum Wines)
The judges have judged. Many thanks to all our fabulous indies who gave up a day of their time – and in some cases more than that due to long-distance travel – to put nearly 1,000 wines through their paces on April 14.
We convened at Big Penny Social in Walthamstow, with judges working in pairs in the morning to decide which wines should make it through to the afternoon session. After a much-needed lunch the teams were mixed up, the wines were reflighted, and the process began of assigning points and tasting notes to the remaining wines.
Once that was done, and our senior judging panel had double checked all the wines and calibrated the scoring, it was time for some well-earned beers.
We’ll be announcing the Top 100, and all our highly commended wines, in May. The Top 100 will be available to taste at our London Wine Fair stand, which you’ll find between Esoterica and Wines Unearthed.
Here’s a reminder of this year’s judging panel. We thoroughly enjoyed their company and it was great to see so many friendships being renewed, and others formed. If you’re an independent merchant and would like to take part in next year’s judging, please get in touch.
The Wine Merchant Top 100 is back, and we’re now calling for entries from any business that supplies great wines to the independent trade.
To us, “great” doesn’t have to mean expensive. Our judges – all of them independent merchants – are looking for wines that offer superb value, whether they are priced £10 or £100. Our list of winners regularly includes wines from a broad price spectrum, and they’ve all impressed in their own way.
The Wine Merchant Top 100 judging is a blind tasting, conducted over two rounds. It involves around 40 independent wine merchants, including a senior panel which aims to ensure consistency. These senior judges are often called upon for guidance or a second opinion by our teams of judges.
How do you select your judges? The panel is changed every year. We try to make the group representative of the independent trade in all its forms, with indies from across the UK and representing different types of wine businesses, from traditional shops to the coolest hybrid stores. You can see the list of 2025 judges taking shape here.
Can indies enter their own directly-imported wines? Definitely, and we’d love to see more of these wines in the competition.
Where does the judging take place? Our new home, since 2024, is Big Penny Social in Walthamstow. We made a short film about last year’s event that you can check out on our Instagram page.
How do the judges arrive at their decision? Judges are split into teams and blind-taste flights of wines. A percentage of these wines go through to the second round, at which point the teams are reshuffled and the remaining wines re-flighted and tasted afresh, this time with scores and notes being submitted by the judges. The highest-scoring wines emerge as the Top 100 winners, with all other wines that made it to the second round being Highly Commended.
Enter your wines now
Email Claire Harries (claire@winemerchantmag.com) to request an entry form or click here. We need completed forms by March 14; the deadline for sending wines (four bottles per entry) to Sensible Wine Services is March 21. Wines cannot be on sale in any multiple (including Majestic and Waitrose) and must be available to independent merchants from UK stock.
There are dozens of reasons to get involved. Here are nine that spring to mind
A PROVEN TRACK RECORD
The Wine Merchant Top 100 has been running since 2013. Independent merchants recognise it as “their” competition and trust it to deliver a credible annual list of wines that deserve their attention. Many retailers organise customer tastings featuring a selection of winning wines.
OUR TASTERS ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS
Our main point of difference from other competitions is that all our judges are independent merchants. We ask them to assess wines just as they would if they were buying for their businesses, taking value for money into account as well as flavour credentials.
THERE ARE 40 INDEPENDENTS IN THE ROOM
Regardless of where your wine finally places, it will be tasted by a number of merchants on the day. Judges regularly feed back that the Top 100 judging is one of the most useful ways of encountering new wines that they wouldn’t otherwise have discovered.
IT’S A RIGOROUS TASTING PROCESS
To be a winner in the Top 100, a wine has to impress two sets of tasters over two rounds of judging, as well as our four-strong senior panel. As many as 10 palates can be involved in that process. It’s why we’re always happy with our list of winners.
WINNERS TAKE PRIDE OF PLACE AT OLYMPIA
All Top 100 winning wines are available at the London Wine Fair. Our free-pour stand, in the heart of the floor area, is a magnet for the independent merchants who attend over the three days of the show, as well as other trade buyers, journalists and influencers.
TEN TROPHIES UP FOR GRABS
Ten of the Top 100 wines are announced as Trophy winners. These are the highest-scoring red, white, rosé, fortified and sparkling wines, as well as the wines we consider to be the best-value winners in all those categories. We present these prizes at the London Wine Fair.
EVERY INDIE HEARS ABOUT OUR WINNERS
In July, we’ll publish our annual Top 100 Winners Supplement. Written by chairman of judges and Observer wine writer David Williams, it gives full details of all our winning wines, including those that just miss the cut and are Highly Commended.
CERTIFICATES AND LOGOS
All winners receive a certificate, and medal logos that can be used in marketing activity. These are useful graphics to add to your website and social media channels, to create POS displays or even to apply to winning bottles. We want you to celebrate your win. It’s hard earned.
PRICES HAVE BEEN HELD FOR 2025
It costs just £80 to enter a wine into The Wine Merchant Top 100, no increase on 2024. We want the competition to be accessible to wine businesses of all sizes, not just those with big budgets. Small importers are regularly among the competition’s winning suppliers.
The Wine Merchant Top 100 