International Wine Challenge names Morrisons wine supermarket of the year

Morrisons has been named Supermarket of the Year at the International Wine Challenge for the first time.

The International Wine Challenge (IWC) award is given to the retailer that can best demonstrate the quality, value and service credentials of its wine offer. Morrisons picked up the award at a ceremony held last week at the Hilton Park Lane in London.

“Over the past three years we have completely revolutionised our wine offer,” said Morrisons’ senior wine sourcing manager Mark Jarman. “We’ve worked hard to develop a range that is both exciting and great value, which demystifies wine and encourages our customers to buy with confidence.

”We strive to ensure that every product in our range offers fantastic quality and brilliant value for money and this is a tremendous accolade.”

Other winners in the awards, which are owned by The Grocer’s publisher William Reed Business Media, included Laithwaite’s - named both Wine Merchant of the Year and Online Retailer of the Year - and Oddbins, which scooped High Street Chain of the Year.

The event announced the Trophy Winners of the 2015 IWC – the 18 wines that most impressed judges out of the hundreds given medals in the Challenge. Five supermarket wines were awarded gongs (see table below), and awards were also given for Winemaker of the Year in five categories, alongside trophies for sustainable production, Fairtrade production, and sake.

Tesco also won Own Label Range of the Year, while the Champion of Champions’ Trophy, for the overall winner, went to Piper-Heidsieck’s 1998 Rare (Magnum).