OUR 2023 TROPHY WINNERS

Congratulations to this year’s winners, who achieved the highest scores in their categories from our panel of independent judges. Taste them all on day two of the LWF

Sparkling Trophy

Champagne Germar Breton Millésime, Champagne, France 2014 (£54, Vindependents)

White Trophy

CVNE Virgen del Galir Regueirón Godello, Valdeorras, Galicia, Spain 2021 (£31.50, Hatch Mansfield)

Red Trophy

Carpineto Brunello di Montalcino, Tuscany, Italy 2017 (£52.50, Hallgarten & Novum Wines)

Rosé Trophy

Feudi di San Gregorio Irpinia Rosato, Visione, Campania, Italy 2021 (£22.25, Hallgarten & Novum Wines)

Fortified Trophy

Valdespino VOS & VORS Collection

Oloroso Don Gonzalo Sherry, Jerez, Spain NV (£46.99, Liberty Wines)

Best Value Sparkling Trophy

Global Wines Portugal Cabriz

Espumante Brut, Dão, Portugal 2017 (£16.50, Marta Vine)

Best Value White Trophy

Wildeberg Wild House Chenin Blanc, Western Cape, South Africa 2022 (£8.99, Boutinot)

Best Value Red Trophy

Zuccardi Los Olivos Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina 2020 (£12.90, Hatch Mansfield)

Best Value Rosé Trophy

Helfrich Family La Baume Rosé, IGP Languedoc, France (£12.99, Les Grands Chais de France)

Best Value Fortified Trophy

Graham’s Six Grapes Reserve Port, Douro, Portugal NV (£15, Fells)

The Wine Merchant Magazine

winemerchantmag.com 01323 871836 Twitter: @WineMerchantMag

Editor and Publisher: Graham Holter graham@winemerchantmag.com

Assistant Editor: Claire Harries claire@winemerchantmag.com

Advertising: Sarah Hunnisett sarah@winemerchantmag.com

Accounts: Naomi Young naomi@winemerchantmag.com

The Wine Merchant is circulated to the owners of the UK’s 1,027 specialist independent wine shops.

I’m writing this on April 23, Shakespeare’s birthday. Maybe that’s why a line from Hamlet keeps running through my mind as I read the latest news from the Scottish parliament. Could it be, as Polonius says of a troupe of strolling players, that our MSPs are “the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral-comical, historicalpastoral, tragical-historical, or tragicalcomical-historical-pastoral”?

I’m not referring to the police investigation of senior members of the SNP. Only time will tell whether that scandal is a tragedy or just a footnote in history. Whichever way, it won’t impinge greatly on our little world of whisky, cheese and wine. Rather, I’m talking about the tragicalcomical train-wreck that is Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). The subject has been covered in these pages before, but recent weeks have seen some significant developments.

First, our new first minister, Humza Yousaf, announced that the launch of the scheme would be put off till March 2024. Sighs of relief were heard in every brewery, wine shop, craft distillery and licensed premises across the country. DRS was meant to go live in August this year, but with just three months to go, crucial details of its operation were still to be worked out. That’s why five major supermarkets, as well as almost every small and mediumsized producer and retailer, had been calling for a rethink. When I say calling, I really mean lobbying for a pause in every way we could imagine.

Two days later, the minister responsible for the scheme, Lorna Slater of the Scottish Greens, announced several significant changes. These were:

• Simplifying the application process for exemption from accepting returns

• The exclusion from the scheme of small bottles such as whisky miniatures

• The removal of the need for hospitality premises to accept returned bottles for any occasional off-sales

• A special exemption for any product made or imported in quantities of less than 5,000 bottles per year.

This last concession will be helpful for us, as it means we can once again import directly from small wineries in Châteauneuf du Pape and the Loire. We’d been worried that DRS would make it uneconomical for us to source these wines, as the volumes involved were too small to justify the extra expense required. So, another sigh of relief.

But this doesn’t mean that all the problems associated with DRS have been resolved. Far from it. The Scottish scheme’s failure to align with similar plans for the rest of the UK – due to go live in 2025 – is still a major concern. Answers to questions in important areas like VAT remain absent, or confusing. Communication of how the scheme works is poor, leading to widespread public misunderstanding. (For instance, DRS is nothing like the old “rinse and reuse” bottle schemes that many of us remember from the 1970s and earlier. But it’s far more complicated and expensive than that, for both businesses and consumers.)

Worst of all, even when announcing the few welcome changes, Lorna Slater was unwilling to show a trace of humility and admit any fault on her or the Scottish government’s part. Instead, she blamed the UK government for failing to allow DRS to bypass laws which ensure a level playing field for businesses across all four nations. The UK government hasn’t said it will block DRS, it just hasn’t said it won’t. Maybe if Lorna Slater had submitted her application in a timely fashion, rather than doing so belatedly, last month, then we might have had an answer from Westminster by now.

Our local MSP, Liam McArthur, who has spoken up clearly about Orkney businesses’ DRS concerns, said in Holyrood: “The minister’s statement was a remarkable exercise in blame shifting that was both ill-advised and lacking in selfawareness.”

To put it another way, and in the words of Mr Shakespeare: “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” And I don’t mean an empty wine bottle clattering into a recycling bin.