Louis Roederer swept the board at last night’s Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships Awards Dinner, being crowned Supreme World Championfor the Louis Roederer NV Brut Premier in Magnum and taking the gong for Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year 2018. The announcements took place in front of a ‘who’s who’ gathering of over 150 internationalwinemakers, producers and journalists at the annual Awards Dinner in Merchant Taylors’ Hall in  London.

Founder and head judge Tom Stevenson said: “We have been really impressed by the standard of Champagnes and sparkling wines that have entered this year. The bar was set high from day one and the medal count certainly reflects this. We were delighted to see Louis Roederer Chef de Caves Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon collect the ultimate crown for their NV Brut Premier.”

2018 was a ground-breaking year for the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships in terms of the increase in entries from USA, UK, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Eastern Europe, Hungary and South Africa which averaged in excess of 75% of the entries. A total of 25 trophies were awarded from 68 Best in Class winners, including 9 National Champions, 7 World Champions by Style and the Chairman’s Trophy, presented this year to Dominique Demarville, Chef de Caves of Verve Clicquot.

The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, for the first time, also made Lifetime Achievement Awards to the late Thierry Roset of Champagne Charles Heidsieck, the late Michel Salgues, Sparkling Wine Consultant, whose award was collected by his daughter Anne Salgues, Thierry Gasco of Champagne Pommery, Jean-Paul Gandon of Champagne Lanson, Hervé Deschamps of Maison Perrier-Jouet, Richard Geoffroy of Champagne Dom Perignon, Loïc Dupont of Champagne Taittinger, François Domi of Champagne Billecart-Salmon and Ed Carr of House of Arras. Stevenson praised each and every one for the effort, dedication and sheer brilliance that each have contributed to the history, development and success of the sparkling wine world as it is today.

Stevenson went on to say said, “However it is our mission not just to promote world class wines, but also to discover and reward new and exciting wines from established and emerging regions across the world, so I was particularlypleased to present Carassia from Romania with the World Champion Rising Star trophy.

“Although we stick rigidly to recognising and publishing only Gold and Silver medals, to ensure that each and every winning wine is very special, we also want to encourage those producers of Bronze level quality wines from emerging regions or established regions with very little history of sparkling wine production. It’s very hard for isolated producers to gauge how they are progressing when they have no local competition of world-class quality. This is where the CSWWC brings added value, providing exclusive feedback and consistent, objective and authoritative assessment from the same three specialist sparkling wine judges each year. To extend this theme further, we have introduced a new “Rising Star” trophy, which should make the recipient’s exceptional progress stand out in the market place.”

The full World Champions by Style and National Champions for 2018 and Best in Class Winners are listed under  the Results tab.

For further information please contact: Rachel Davey on rachel@cswwc.com