If you're a wine lover, you surely must know of 67 Pall Mall - after all, where else would you find a wine menu (by the glass!) that even comes close to the extensiveness of the members' club, with over a 1,000 (that's right!) labels ranging from newfound gems to rarefied icons. Established in 2010, the Club has locations from London and Verbier, Switzerland, all the way to Singapore, with new locations soon to come alive, from Bordeaux to Beaune, Melbourne to Hong Kong - all of which aim to deliver the dream experience for any wine lover. 

A Little Bit About The 67 Pall Mall Awards

Going one step further, 67 Pall Mall wants to help spread the gospel of wine loving beyond the walls of its club, and thus the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards! The award, now in its second year running, and the brainchild of 67 Pall Mall Head of Wine for Asia MW Richard Hemming, celebrates the world's best wine communicators, who collectively help to push wine appreciation in the greater public forward, whether it be shining a light on cultural moments (how the legendary Krug is customarily drunk in a beer glass at an Aussie pub) to simply sharing tips on how to use the right glasses for Champagne, or entertaining us with a vertical tasting of Veuve Clicquot across the ages - surely one of epic proportions!

As any sort of camaraderie, in its inaugural 2024 showing, the stats go as follows: a total of 642 entries were submitted from 224 communicators across 23 countries, of which 146 made the longlist, and then finally 23 finalists were selected, of whom 5 of them won the award.

Now before you get stumped, it's worth quickly pointing out that the 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards is really unique in that it takes into account the modern formats with which people enjoy content today, and is open to entries from a 1-minute Instagram Reel, to full-length videos, as well as podcast episodes, and of course, the traditional format of writing (which again can range from short essays to academic papers, on any wine topic under the sun). Each format has its own dedicated category to ensure an equal judging, and the winner stands to win a cash prize of £2,000!

The following are the categories up for competing: 

 
• The Gusbourne Estate Award for Best Wine Communicator in Long-Form Writing
• The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Wine Communicator in Short-Form Writing
• The Jera Wine for Best Wine Communicator in Long Video (>3 m)
• The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Wine Communicator in Short Video (<3 m)
• The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Wine Communicator in Audio
• The Berkmann Award for Outstanding Communicator for entrants that submit
content across all three disciplines (writing, video, audio)

And of course participants are able to join in from anywhere in the world, with entries to be submitted online at 67awards.com . With such a flexible and all embracing, very comprehensive awards system, there are nevertheless a few guidelines - all entries must be in the English language (aside from Videos, which can feature English subtitles in lieu of foreign languages used), and submissions must be made by Sunday 9th March 2025, with all entries having been published between Monday 4th March 2024 to Monday 3rd March 2025. Interested participants should also head to 67awards.com for the full set of rules and for the relevant entry forms. It's 100% critical to note that entry for the Awards is free (and regardless of however many entries)!

Finalists will be announced July 2025, with the winners to be revealed at a gala ceremony in London (and also broadcasted live on Pall Mall's website) on Friday 5th September 2025.

As for the judging panel, this 2025 year's edition will be judged by a 6-person cast that includes Elaine Chukan Brown, Agnese Gintere, Andrew Jefford, Anna Lee Iijima, Sonal Holland and Tyson Stelzer, with Brown serving as the Chair of Judges. This year's Awards are sponsored by Gusbourne Estate, Berkmann Wine Cellars, Jera Wine and Lay & Wheeler. 

Now How About Winning? Give Me Those Secrets!

We were fortunate to attend the info session for the 67 Pall Mall Wine Communicator Awards at Singapore's own 67 Pall Mall branch, which was of course conducted by MW Richard Hemming himself!

And of course we were given some hot tips for those looking to enter the Awards, which we were ourselves very positively surprised by how it was designed to be much more relevant to the wine community and the broader public of today, and thus contained medium specific categories that allowed for short-form videos and even podcast episodes to be entered into the Awards! Unlike most traditional awards which tend to focus on highly indepth writing that often necessitates on the ground research, the Awards organised by 67 Pall Mall is well and truly open to anyone who is able to move the conversation about wines forward. And so really, there is no set in stone criteria for what makes a winning entry!

Richard Hemming giving us the secrets to success.

Hemming had shared that whilst each judge would surely find themselves more partial to various different aspects of an entry, ultimately it would be fair to categorise winning entries as those that were able to make wines relevant, pique the public's interest about wines, and could use their medium to approach any aspect of wines in an innovative and interesting manner; that would simply get the conversation started and going. This we thought was a very good soft guideline for potential candidates to first consider about their entry, especially in considering what pieces of content to submit - although it should also be pointed out that participants can submit numerous entries!

Aside from that general quality of winning entries, it's also heartening for potential participants to know that there is no hard and fast criteria for what sort of content or angle is necessary in order to win, and on top of that, neither the popularity (or lack thereof) of the participant nor the scale of engagement success a piece of content achieves will be a factor of consideration either! That means that neither the number of followers nor the amount of "likes" one gets matters, although it is of course beneficial if a piece of content is able to stir conversations about wines on a wider public level.

Ultimately, the ability to produce a piece of content that is original, speaks to and engages with its audience, showcases the participant's personality, giving him or her a voice, that is what 67 Pall Mall is looking for!

And whilst it's fun to talk in aspiration of what might it take to win, it's just an important to talk about the ONE cardinal rule to staying in the game - and that's simply the ensuring of good production value, which they've defined as making sure that entries do not have grammatical or spelling errors, facts are checked, and production and formatting is done well. Well, that's not too high a bar is it, and yet it reminds us all that vetting our work is going to be crucial in not getting kicked out of the Awards!

We also found it helpful and instructive to take a look at some of the past winners, which again, whilst there being no fixed criteria, do demonstrate some common winning traits.

The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Global Wine Communicator in Short-Form Video

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Henna Bakshi (@hennabakshi)

Winner: Henna Bakshi, United States

Boot the flute

The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Global Wine Communicator in Long-Form Video

Winner: André Hueston Mack, United States

Sommelier Tastes the Same Champagne at Different Ages (1973-2023) | World of Wine | Bon Appétit

The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Global Wine Communicator in Audio (2024)

Winner: Peter Richards and Susie Barrie, United Kingdom

Wine Blast with Susie and Peter: Light Strike: Wine’s Not-So-Secret Scandal

The 67 Pall Mall Award for Best Global Wine Communicator in Short-Form Writing

Winner: Nick Ryan, Australia

The curious congruity of Krug in a beer glass in a pub

The Gusbourne Estate Award for Best Global Wine Communicator in Long-Form Writing

Winner: Henna Bakshi, United States

Bollywood Movies Are Having a Wine Renaissance

The Berkmann Award for Best All-Round Wine Communicator

Winner: Amanda Barnes, Argentina

For work in Decanter, World of Fine Wine, on YouTube and podcasts

Good luck to all participants and be sure to check out 67 Pall Mall's Wine Communicator Awards, because you just might be the 2025 winner! And of course, for all wine lovers out there, be sure to check out 67 Pall Mall's members' club if you're into having a 1,000-bottle long wine list of the who's who of producers.

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team