Sarah joined Lyme Bay in 2019, just before harvest. Before that (she describes herself as a ”travelling winemaker”), she worked at wineries in California, Australia and Burgundy. She wasn’t planning on staying for longer than one harvest at Lyme Bay Winery but enjoyed it so much she decided to lay her hat down. We are also proud to have achieved incredible success in all three of this year’s global wine competitions, with a host of medals for our English still wines.

Our Pinot Noir 2020 made another great showing at the WineGB Awards taking a Silver, alongside a Silver for our Sparkling Rosé NV. During the 2020 harvest, Sarah worked the day shift and was astounded at the quality of the fruit, crediting it with a ripeness she has never seen in English grapes before and was really proud of the wines we created from this harvest – and the harvests following this. All three of these competitions are very well-established and respected. The IWSC is a global wine and spirits community with a mission to discover and champion the best wine and spirits from around the world. In its 39th year, the IWC is accepted as one of the world’s most impartial and influential annual wine competitions, with each IWC medal-winning wine tasted on at least three separate occasions by a minimum of two panels of judges tasting together, and then by two co-chairs to verify the panel results. And in its 20th year, DWWA is also rigorously judged by top wine experts from around the globe.

AWARD WINNING

As we gather in this year’s grape harvest, we are also celebrating our most recent awards successes. The Food Drink Devon awards

James started his winemaking career at a young age. Cutting his teeth in the wine labs at Broadland Drinks, testing 20 to 30 wines per day, he enrolled on a wine appreciation course led by Frank Leatherdale. James credits Frank’s knowledge, enthusiasm and passion, for setting him on his career journey into wine. Organised and run by WineGB and co-chaired by leading wine experts Susie Barrie MW and Oz Clarke OBE, the aim of these awards is to highlight the quality, consistency and variety of English and Welsh wines.It is a huge honour and privilege for our wines to be recognised in these prestigious competitions”, says Lyme Bay Winemaker Sarah Massey, “especially since they are judged so rigorously and hold all entrants to the highest standards.” Taste of the West Awards In 2006, drawn by Lyme Bay Winery’s ambition to plant a vineyard and make still English wines, he took the job and relocated to Devon. While others had already shown that sparkling English wines of real quality could be made, he felt that still wines had significantly more potential. Our Lyme Bay Pinot Noir 2020 is the only English still red wine to win a Trophy in the International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC) as well as a Gold Medal in both the IWSC and the 2022 International Wine Challenge (IWC). It also gained a Silver Medal in the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) 2022. But it wasn’t only our Pinot Noir 2020 that achieved international success – our Lyme Bay Chardonnay 2020 won two Silver Medals in both the IWC and DWWA awards.