Drinks Trade Champagne & Sparkling Tasting: who will come out on top in 2017?

It's World Champagne Day, so it seems only fitting the drinks trade team has celebrated with its annual Champagne & Sparkling Tasting.

The tasting is Drinks Trade Magazine's biggest and most anticipated tasting of the year. This year the magazine received more than 170 submissions, which have been tasted by a panel of nine leading wine experts.

Among those in attendance at the tasting, held at Wine Ark in Alexandria, were MW Neil Hadley, Taylors Wines; Sharyn Foulis, wine consultant; Tim Dolan, Peter Lehmann Wines; Travis Fuller, Accolade Wines; MJ Van Vuuren, Moet Hennessy; Mark Faber, Wine Ark; Kati Vanionpaa, Wine Australia; Michael Quirk, wine educator; and Amy Hayes, McWilliam's Wines.

The judges enjoyed tasting an increased number of red and rose sparkling wines and prosecco this year, in line with consumer trends in those categories. The quality of Australian sparkling continued to impress the judges and it was interesting to note the number of sparkling wines using a crown seal has grown year on year.

The results of the tasting can be seen in the November/December issue of Drinks Trade, which will be out in two weeks!

Here are some shots from the tasting: