With a panel of 240 judges, among them 69 Masters of Wine and 26 Master Sommeliers, UK’s Decanter Wine Awards lays claim to serious authority pick out the best wine to be had. While it may be unsurprising that France emerged tops with nine of the 31 “platinum – best in show” medals (the biggest haul this year), the results reaped their fair share of surprises. Chile, for example, came in second with six medals in the highest category – their most notable bottle being a now-notoriously affordable wine. We will get back to that bottle at the end of this tale but do take a moment to consider that this was just one of 16,000 submissions, all judged blind.

A few other surprising wins came from countries such as Croatia and Switzerland, which collected some ‘best of show’ medals. Other countries that took home a raft of platinum and gold medals include Australia, Spain and Italy. The Grace winery from Japan also managed to score two platinum medals.

And now, back to that Chilean wonder, the Malbec La Moneda Reserva 2015… This humble wine’s victory in the under $21 category created waves of interest. In fact, the demand generated from the victory caused the supermarket retailer Asda’s website to crash so those interested better act fast before the supply runs low! The taste was described by judges to have flavors reminiscent of “succulent juicy berries, freshly crushed black fruit, creamy vanilla yogurt and pepper spice”.

If you need to find a new bottle of wine to sit back and relax with, you can check the winners from Decanter Awards over here.

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