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Wine industry gears up for Golden Vines Awards on 7 October
By Tempus | 10 September 2021 | Culture, Food & Drink
The famed awards will take place after the Golden Vines Fine Wine, Rare Spirit and Experience Auction
A unique set of 71 fine wine and rare spirits will be sold at The Golden Vines Fine Wine, Rare Spirit and Experience Auction, opening on 23 September. Organised by Liquid Icons, the online auction will be available for global bidding until its close on the 7 October – the night of the Golden Vines Awards.
With proceeds from the auction benefitting The Gerard Basset Wine Education Charitable Foundation, each lot will feature large formats or rarities as well as exclusive experiences from the world’s top fine wine estates and spirit distilleries across five continents.
The Foundation funds diversity and inclusion in wine education programmes, including The Taylor’s Port Golden Vines Diversity Scholarships, and expects to raise over £1m from the auction.
Foundation Trustee and Liquid Icons’ Lewis Chester says: “We are honoured and humbled by the enormous enthusiasm and generosity of so many top fine wine estates and spirit distilleries in support of the Foundation’s work. The industry clearly recognises the issues around diversity and inclusion and the need to radically tackle them through the Foundation’s global wine education programmes.”
The Foundation is combatting what it describes as the fine wine industry’s “ground zero” of diversity, recognising that there are very few Masters of Wine and only three Master Sommeliers of BAME/BIPOC backgrounds. Chester and his team aim to create opportunities for students from more diverse backgrounds to gain access to all levels of wine education.
Among the extraordinary lots, Liber Pater is donating 18-litres of the world’s most expensive red wine on release along with a tour, tasting and lunch with Loic Pasquet. Cheval Blanc will auction a Chateau experience for 10, which includes a fine wine dinner with head winemaker Pierro Clouet, and a jeroboam of Cheval Blanc 2006.
At Domaine des Lambrays in Morey-Saint-Denis, guests can try a 90+ year old Grand Crus Burgundy and bottles from the 1930s with head winemaker Jacques Devauges, while Veuve Cliquot’s Hotel du Marc in Reims will be a home from home for those who desire a jeroboam of the brand’s 1990 La Grande Dame.
More fine wine experiences have been donated by Domaine Clarence Dillon, Château Mouton Rothschild, Charles Heidsieck, Dom Pérignon, Taittinger, Biondi-Santi, Schloss Johannisberg, Gusbourne Estate, Opus One, Bodega Catena Zapata and Justerini & Brooks, as well as rare spirits from Brora, Glenmorangie, The Macallan and Sullivans Cove.