Decanter contributing editor John Stimpfig was named Wine Writer of the Year at the Glenfiddich awards last night.
Stimpfig won the prestigious award for articles in the Weekend FT – beating Decanter columnist Andrew Jefford, nominated for his work in Decanter and the Evening Standard.
Other highlights included self-confessed ‘misfit at the Oscars’ Dave Broom, who won two major awards.
Broom, who specialises in writing in an accessible style about wine and spirits, said before the ceremony in London’s Imax Cinema, ‘I’m like the art-house movie at the Oscars – there’s always one nominated but it hardly ever wins.’
The Scottish writer then went on to win £1,000 and a case of rare single malts for Drink!…Never Mind the Peanuts, along with his co-author Susy Atkins, a Decanter contributor. After that, he scooped the Drink Writer award for his wine journalism.
The auditorium of the state-of-the-art cinema was packed with a star-studded crowd, including Gordon Ramsay, Raymond Blanc, the River Café’s Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, and seafood maestro Rick Stein.
Other winners were TV chef and food pundit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for The River Cottage Cookbook, Sybil Kapoor (Magazine Cookery Writer), London eaterie Kensington Place’s Rowley Leigh for newspaper cookery writing, and Decanter contributor John Stimpfig for work in the Financial Times.
Fearnley-Whittingstall also won the Glenfiddich Trophy 2002 for his ‘outstanding contribution’ towards food and drink understanding. Last year’s winner was Decanter columnist Michael Broadbent.
Susy Atkins said of her and Broom’s book – described as ‘a no-nonsense approach’ to wines, beers and spirits – ‘It can be difficult writing about the joys of tequila, at eight o’clock on a winter morning with a cup of tea in front of you.’
Stephen Brook won the Clicquot Wine Book of the Year award for Bordeaux: People, Power and Politics. The prize is $1,000 in cash and a case of Veuve Clicquot’s La Grande Dame 1993.
Runners-up were Oz Clarke’s Encyclopedia of Grapes, and The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.
Wine by Andre Dominé won the James Beard Foundation award for the best book on wine and spirits. The award raised eyebrows, as the book has gone virtually unnoticed in critical circles.
The James Beard award for outstanding wine service in a restaurant went to the Gramercy Tavern, whose sommelier is Paul Grieco, and the award to an outstanding wine and spirits professional went to Andrea Immer, a master sommelier at the French Culinary Institute, both in downtown Manhattan.
Written by Adam Lechmere10 May 2002
