How we judge Star Wine List of the Year
We started our awards, Star Wine List of the Year, to celebrate great wine lists and the teams behind them. But how do we judge them and how does the whole tour work? Here Krister Bengtsson, Star Wine List's Founder, explains.
Updated 16 January 2025
Take a look inside one of our events with this one-minute video:
Star Wine List of the Year is our wine list celebration and competition. It started in Sweden in 2018 and has evolved to cover many countries. Here's how it works:
Entries
All wine bars and restaurants in the concerned markets are welcome to submit their wine lists, free of charge. Check out each country's event page for details on how to enter.
Please note the local admission variations in the event posts for each national event.
Click here for an overview of all forthcoming Star Wine List of the Year events.
Categories
We have a set of international categories for every tour, which we celebrate in all markets. Please refer to our most recent articles to see which ones they are. We may also add extra categories for certain markets, in certain years.
Partners
There are no fees for restaurants or bars to be listed by Star Wine List, or to enter the awards. Therefore, we rely on good sponsors, partners, to cover our costs. But rest assured: the partners have no influence over selections of juries, finalists or winners; partners learn about the winners on the event day, at the same time as everybody else.
Jury
The jury for each event is selected from an international panel of judges including top sommeliers and wine professionals such as Pascaline Lepeltier, Paz Levinson, Marc Almert and Arvid Rosengren. In addition, we usually add a local judge, such as we have done with Ruth Spivey (UK) and Edwin Raben (NL) in the past. The international jury constantly expands as we welcome more judges.
Criteria & scoring
The main criteria is straightforward but not simple: vote for the most exciting wine list representing the category.
“We feel that this makes more sense than having very defined criteria,” says Krister Bengtsson. “When we have many of the best sommeliers in the world on our jury panel, we want to give them a freer mandate to vote for lists that excite them. We also don't want to create standards that sommeliers follow. We want to be inspired, not create recipes.”
For the ‘Sustainable Wine List’ category, we evaluate both a venue’s wine list and the statement made within their application about their work. The jury will also consider the wine program's overall impact, including wine growing, winemaking, packaging and transport.
Besides the honour and bragging rights, the winners of each category get a framed Gold Star certificate to post at their venue, as well as digital badges and mentions on Star Wine List. For certain categories there are other prizes as well – those are decided per category and event, and announced during the awards ceremonies.
The categories for ‘Long,’ ‘Medium’ and ‘Short’ lists are decided by the number of references on the wine lists. We define a ‘reference’ as one wine label (i.e. a particular winery release/wine name; from any one vintage, if relevant) regardless of bottle format or pouring mode. For example, a bottle of 2015 Château Latour would count as one reference, whether sold in standard bottle size and/or magnum, and whether poured by the glass or only sold by the bottle. However, a different vintage of Château Latour would count as a separate reference; as would a bottle by the same winery but under a different name (e.g. Les Forts de Latour). Therefore, if you have:
2014 Château Latour bottle
2015 Château Latour bottle
2015 Château Latour magnum
2015 Les Forts de Latour bottle
2015 Les Forts de Latour by the glass
Then this is counted by us as three references (2014 Château Latour, 2015 Château Latour, 2015 Les Forts de Latour).
The wine list
The wine list submitted must be a real wine list that is accessible at the venue or on the website of the restaurant/bar – or on Star Wine List. Wine lists made only for the event are not allowed (for example, if the venue has stock that is hidden from the regular wine list).
The wine list should include vintages and prices.
The wine list should be in a language readable for international jury members.
Pop-up venues and private wine clubs are currently not allowed, nor are wine shops without a wine bar connected to them.
We reserve the right to verify the contents of a wine list either live or through video call, and the right to refuse any entries.
For the ‘By the Glass’ (BTG) category, we require a specific wine list for the BTG section or confirmation of which wines are served by the glass from the regular list. General comments such as “all wines below a certain bottle price are served by the glass” cannot be judged properly by the jury and will not be included.
Venues that enter the awards must accept that the wine list will be made visible on Star Wine List, and that we include the restaurant/bar in the guide.
Possible bias
When a judge has any kind of influence over a list, the judge in question will not rate that list (i.e. if it's part of their group of restaurants, if the sommelier has worked their before and was instrumental in building the list, etc).
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
That covered, onto a few questions we get every now and then:
How do you make money?
Our revenue comes from the partners/sponsors of our competitions. There is currently no fee for restaurants or bars to participate in Star Wine List of the Year. (And there is no fee to be listed on the guide Star Wine List either).
My favourite place was not a finalist, why?
Either the wine list was not submitted ahead of the deadline, or it failed to get the jury votes necessary to reach the final.
My favourite private club or shop was not a finalist, why not?
Star Wine List is all about going out to restaurants and wine bars, so that is what we select for Star Wine List of the Year too.
We were not selected as a winner or finalist – can I get feedback on why, and what to do differently next time?
Since the juries are composed of several judges, who change between every event, it is not possible for us to give individual feedback on what you should do differently next time – what excites one judge may be different from the next year's jury. We also don't want to create templates or ideals for how wine lists should be. We want to be inspired, not create recipes. Our main advice is to keep building what you believe in.
Legal terms for Star Wine List can be found on our terms page.
Cheers,
Krister Bengtsson
Founder, Star Wine List
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