Vivino’s 2021 Community Awards elevate consumers to tell-it-like it critics, revealing the best wines of the year, and showcasing there is no “right” way to talk about wine
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (November 16, 2021) – 54 million opinionated wine drinkers can’t be wrong, right? The Vivino community has spoken, revealing the world’s best wines of 2021. Championing approachability over elitism, the Vivino Community Awards, launched today, are the largest industry awards wholly decided by consumers, not critics.
Celebrating incredible wine producers from every corner of the globe and drawing on hundreds of millions of unbiased, tell-it-like-it-is reviews and ratings, these aren’t your typical wine awards, with winning wines selected by the collective voice of the people who drink and love them. This approach departs from typical award programs and conversations around wine that a limited group of elite stakeholders has historically driven.
“The Vivino Community Awards are chosen by the world’s most honest wine critics, our wine-drinking community, whose collective opinion, we believe, is more valuable than that of any one expert.” Vivino founder Heini Zachariassen said. “These awards demonstrate that participation in the world of wine shouldn’t be limited to any one group of people. There’s a passionate and diverse community of wine lovers on Vivino eager to share their opinions and to find great wines to drink.”
Vivino’s community of more than 50 million composed this year’s list through ratings and reviews given over a consecutive 12 month time period. The list includes the very best 100 overall wines globally, plus the world’s favorite 100 red, white, rosé, and sparkling wines. The awards also highlight America’s favorite wines in several categories, including the top 20 in a variety of wine types and price bands. The complete list of award-winning wines can be seen at www.vivino.com/awards.
“No one is better suited than Vivino to bring wine drinkers of the world closer to the wines they love,” Zachariassen said. “Not all of these wines and producers will be familiar to everyone, and that’s OK. We hope that the Vivino Community Awards help you discover your next favorite wine.”
Highlights from this year’s list of winners:
- Red Red Wine Takes the Cake: Red wines dominate the overall global top 100 list, with 85 represented. There are just eight sparkling, four port, two white, and a solitary dessert wine represented in the top 100.
- Portugal Ties Italy in Third Place for Most Wines on Global Top 100 List: “A body that fills the mouth and above all the soul!” This is how Vivino user Pedro D. described Pai Horacio Grande Reserva 2013 when he rated it 5 stars on Vivino. This wine is one of the 15 Portuguese wines that landed on this year’s global top 100 list. While wines from the United States (29) and France (26) lead the top 100 list, they were followed by Italy and, surprisingly, Portugal which each had 15 wines represented. Spain (7), Argentina (4), Australia (2), and Chile (2) rounded out the list. Nine bottles come from the Douro Valley, which has some of the oldest established wine region borders globally. Four bottles come from Porto (aka the Alentejo region), which is also famous for cork trees.
- Rosé isn’t Going Anywhere, and We’re Here for It. We Predict our Community will Be Sipping a Lot of Sparkling Rosé This Holiday Season and Beyond: Rosé continued to trend around the globe and Vivino users explored styles from around the world, from the classic stalwarts in France to fuller-bodied styles from Italy and Spain. In the Global Top 100, the rosé category drew from 17 different countries of origin (compared to only eight in the red wine category) from Austria and Argentina to Greece, South Africa, and even Russia! Within the global top 100 sparkling wine category, sparkling rosé had a strong showing with over a dozen wines.
- Maine Produced One of America’s Favorite Wines: Vivino users are quite curious drinkers. This year, Americans surprised us with some very unpredictable wines showing up as favorites – namely a sparkling Pétillant Naturel produced in Maine with grapes harvested in New York. With a 4.3 Star Vivino Rating, Oyster River Morphos Pétillant Naturel 2020 was rated one of the best wines in America under $30. As the climate changes, new wine regions continue to emerge around the globe, and new wine-producing states are certainly making their mark.
About the Vivino Community Awards
The Vivino Community Awards is a wine awards program that showcases the best wines of the past year, as decided by the world’s most honest and unbiased wine critics – Vivino’s community of more than 50 million worldwide. The Vivino Community Awards were launched in 2021 to celebrate the people and places from every corner of the globe that produce incredible wines and to highlight that there is no “right” way to talk about or judge wine. Vivino believes the opinions of everyone – from the wine curious to the wine enthusiast – are valuable and collectively more trustworthy than the opinions of one or a few expert critics. These awards are one way Vivino strives to challenge the elitism of the wine industry and create a more approachable, inclusive way for people to discuss and share their tastes in wine. To be eligible for the Vivino Community Awards, wines needed to have at least 50 ratings submitted from Vivino’s users over 12 consecutive months. The complete list of 2021 award winners can be explored at www.vivino.com/awards.
About Vivino
Vivino empowers people to enjoy wine to the fullest. Wine is about so much more than just a great label; it’s about an experience and community and, of course, what’s in the bottle. That’s where Vivino comes in. As the world’s largest online wine marketplace and most downloaded wine app, the Vivino community is made up of millions of wine drinkers from around the world, coming together to make buying the right wine simple, straightforward, and fun. Vivino uses crowd-sourced data to personalize wine recommendations so that every community member feels confident about their wine choices. Created for everyone who likes wine—from the wine curious to the wine enthusiast—the Vivino app is available for free on both Apple and Android devices
