Launched in 2016 and held annually, the Independent English Wine Awards is a wine competition whose purpose is to award, promote and celebrate the best of English wine. Based in Bristol and the only competition of its type, the IEWA is a consumer focussed, wholly independent wine competition. The real story is English wine, but you can read a little more about our story here if you’re so inclined.

Good question. The why enter list we’ve put together makes a good case, but in general terms, we set out to create a credible, engaging, consumer focussed English wine competition, which would break free of the traditional wine comp perception; ‘expensive and not always that helpful, even when you win a medal’. We’ve come a long way in a short time, but this is a longer-term project and we’ll have fun on this journey. Join us!

Wine competitions tend to follow a similar format; behind closed-doors blind tasting and scoring, usually out of 100, by serious looking people who you’d imagine know what they’re talking about. But not only are our diverse and accomplished judges not particularly sombre looking, we consciously make more effort than others to draw attention to medal wins, through our website, PR efforts and innovative social media marketing activity.

We’re referring to the fact that the IEWA is not owned by or affiliated to a larger company or organisation. That’s really important to the credibility of our message. Objectivity is so important if any message is to be taken seriously, particularly in this climate of ‘fake news’ and skepticism: The IEWA is proudly free from conflict, compromise or influence. Indeed, we’re proud ‘outsiders’. Our independence is a really important part of our story.

To be chaired in 2018 by Liam Steevenson MW, our panel of carefully selected judges is highly credible, professionally diverse and offers as close to 360° consumer insight as we could achieve. The complete line-up of our judges from 2017 is available to view, and although the full 2018 panel has not yet been finalised, the majority of those names will be returning, as well as a couple of really interesting additions.

Participation in our English wine competition is £70.00 per entry, with no VAT payable. In the event that all goes well and your wine secures a medal, the only other cost would be for medal stickers to adhere to your bottles. These are £30.00 per roll of 1000. All the other marketing materials, like the pro bottle photos and ‘gifs’, and involvement in any other marketing activity, like our ‘Instagram takeovers’, is included in the entry fee.

Entry into the IEWA requires 3 bottled samples of each entry, which must be fully finished in final container, with the final seal, having already gained the entitlement to use and display the terms ‘English’, ‘wine’ and ‘English Wine’. Full details can be found on our terms and conditions page, although that does go on a little. Wine samples should to be sent to our registered address: The IEWA Ltd, 6 Clare Road, Kingswood, Bristol, BS15 1PJ.

The deadline for entering the 2018 Independent English Wine Awards is 1^st February 2018. Our key dates page contains all the milestones to be aware of in advance of the competition, which takes place on 3^rd March 2018. We started accepting entries on 1^st November 2017, which may seem excessively early, but we wanted to leave it open for a good while to account for as many of the various cycles and timetables producers work to.

You can register your wine in the Independent English Wine Awards by signing up for an account, cost-free, on our website. That will get quickly approved and set-up, and gives access to our web portal, where it’s possible to either complete and submit an online form, or download an editable PDF form, to be returned to us via email, or even post. The portal also features a payment platform, or you can simply settle up by bank transfer.

Yes. We are able to offer producers in this category a 50% reduction on the cost of our entry fee and medal stickers. The entry fee comes down to £35.00 per wine, and a roll of 1000 medal stickers drops to £15.00. We take the opinion that provided judging is completely fair and ensures anonymity and parity, then it is acceptable to make it easier for this category of producer – social enterprises and centres of higher education – to enter the IEWA.