Peñín Guide, Best Wine Guide by the IWC Merchant Awards

2 December 2021

We are incelebratory mood, the Peñín Guide has received this week the award for the Best Wine Guide according to the International Wine Challenge Merchant Awards, awards that were born in the United Kingdom to reward the work of sommeliers, educators, distributors and all those who bring wine closer to the final consumer. 

The awards ceremony took place on Monday 29 November in Madrid and it was Adolfo Gatell, director of Peñín, who collected the award. The Peñín Guide arrived at the awards ceremony as a finalist alongside such renowned publications as the Gourmets Wine Guide and Wine Advocate. Referring to our publication, the jury valued that "this comprehensive guide does an exhaustive job every year, compiling scores and evaluations of more than 10,500 wines. An impressive work of its tasting team that frames the viticultural photography of Spanish wine at a national and an international level".

This news comes at a very special moment, in the words of Carlos González, director of the publication, "it is a small recognition of our work, for which we are very grateful. We have been prescribing Spanish wines for more than 30 years, assessing all the styles of wines found in Spain, and for a professional jury to recognise the work that the Peñín Guide does in each new edition encourages us to continue with more energy in spreading the virtues of Spanish wine".

Adolfo Gatell, general manager of Peñín, collected the award Best Wine Guide

The jury of the sixth edition of the International Wine Challenge awards, chaired by the Master of Wine Pedro Ballesteros and made up of a full panel of professionals, had to deliberate in the previous days in order to define the 19 categories that were awarded in this edition. In addition to these awards, two special prizes were awarded: Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 and Personality of the Year 2021. The first of these special awards went to Alain Huetz de Lemps, "an unquestionable reference in the Spanish wine scene", Emeritus Professor at the University of Bordeaux, Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Valladolid and author of several books such as his seminal work Viñedos y Vinos del Noroeste de España. The personality of the year was Ramiro Ibáñez, winegrower and producer and expert in the terroir of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, whose work in promoting Sanlúcar and the wines of the Marco de Jerez places, as the jury stated, "the region above all else, supporting every project that arises".

In addition to the awards ceremony, the IWC Talks took place throughout the day, a forum where current Spanish wine issues were debated, with presentations by Ferrán Centelles (Jancis Robinson critic for Spain), Pedro Ballesteros (Master of Wine), Sara Pérez (Bodega Mas Martinet), Maite Sánchez (Bodegas Arrayán), Ramiro Ibañez (Cota 45) and Tao Platón (Península Viticultores).

The Peñín Guide 2022 is now on sale in bookshops throughout Spain and on the web in three languages, Spanish, English and German.

    Written by Redacción