Now in its 18th year, Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) is the world’s largest and most influential wine competition, with unsurpassed global reach. Judged by top wine experts from around the globe, DWWA is trusted internationally for its rigorous judging process.
This was a year of firsts for countries, regions, and wine styles at the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards. The top 50 wines represent this, shining a spotlight on exciting, under-the-radar wines all over the wine world and highlighting exemplary favourites from top wine-producing countries, too.
Wines from 17 countries made this year’s Best in Show list. Οut of the 18,094 wines tasted from 56 countries, only 50 –or 0.28% of the total tasted– were awarded a prestigious Best in Show medal.
A wine from Santorini among 50 Best in Show
Among the Best in Show, a Greek wine from the volcanic vineyard of Santorini the much sought-after nod from the judges: Canava Chrissou, Laoudia, Single Vineyard, 2018 from Tselepos Winery.
According to the competition, “If you follow our Best In Show selection every year, you will already be familiar with the extraordinary Assyrtico-based wines of Santorini, combining almost piercing varietal style with some of the most marked terroir-derived characters you will find anywhere: repeated winners in the past. Now, meet something different: a single-vineyard Santorini with more maturity of fruit, longer ageing and the mellower, less reductive impact which amphora can bring in place of stainless steel. Muted lemon and green-olive scents mingle with that warm strangeness which seems to derive from the island’s pumice and ash soils; on the palate, the wine is concentrated, rich, arresting…and dripping with those same flavours of lemon and green olive, and that a bitter stony warmth.”
The Greek awards
This year, 328 Greek wines in total were among the prestigious winners of the 2021 Decanter World Wine Awards. Namely, apart from the Best in Show, 6 wines received a Platinum award, 16 a Gold award, 138 were given a Silver prize, while 167 a Bronze. Of these awarded wines, 71 came from Macedonia, 63 from Crete, 62 from the Peloponnese (mostly from the vineyard of Nemea), 55 from the Aegean islands (mainly from Santorini and Samos, which is famous for its sweet varieties), 12 from Central Greece (Attiki and Evia), 9 from Epirus and the Ionian islands, and 6 from the northernmost part of Greece, Thrace. Finally, 4 awards were given to Kechris Distillery for its exceptional Retsinas, proving that the unique wine is making a strong comeback.
