This Golden Vines® Report (formerly known as The Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report) is dedicated to the memory of Gérard Basset OBE MW MS MBA OIV MSc ASI World Champion, the founding partner of Liquid Icons, as well as our mentor and friend, who inspired us with his love and enthusiasm for all things to do with the vine and much more besides.

Compiled from views and predictions made by members of the global ﬁne wine & rare spirit industry, this Report identiﬁes key micro and macro trends that are likely to move and shape the global ﬁne wine & rare spirit market. As in 2023, the global ﬁne wine & rare spirit industry members’ voting in The 2024 Golden Vines® Report also determines the winners of The 2024 Golden Vines® Awards – deﬁnitive international awards recognising and celebrating excellence in ﬁne wine. In 2024 – for the ﬁrst time – the scope of the Report was expanded to cover rare spirits, in line with our audience’s expertise and interests.

The 2024 Report covers the period 2024 and predictions for 2025. It is based on responses received from 1,200 leading global ﬁne wine & rare spirit market players – including 68 Masters of Wine, 29 Master Sommeliers, 160 Advanced Sommeliers, 48 ASI Diploma and 301 DipWSET qualiﬁcation holders.

Contributors included 397 sommeliers & ﬁne wine professionals working at

world-class ﬁne dining restaurants (including 1, 2, and 3 Michelin star restaurants and those from The World's 50 Best Restaurants list), private members’ clubs, ﬁne wine clubs, luxury hotels and resorts (including 5-star hotels and resorts on remote exotic islands), bars (including those from The World's 50 Best Bars list), luxury casinos, airlines, private jet companies, luxury cruise ships, wine educational organisations, and haute cuisine culinary schools; 267 ﬁne wine merchants; 251 distributors; 220 vigneron & distillers; 161 journalists and wine press & media members; 121 collectors; 91 ﬁne wine estate & rare spirit distillery representatives; 79 representatives of the hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality industry organisations; 69 educators; 59 brokers; 36 consultants; 36 auction house professionals and 15 importers and buyers, who either work for or represent over 1,000 world-class organisations and institutions based or operating in at least 106 countries worldwide. Those polled in the survey averaged at least 16 years of ﬁne wine experience. Survey responses were received in March, April, May, and June 2024. A detailed list of respondents with their respective wine industry qualiﬁcations as well as their organisations is provided in the ‘Respondents’ and ‘Respondents’ Organisations’ sections at the end of this Report alongside the list of countries in which they are based or operate in.

The 2024 Report determines eight 2024 Golden Vines® Awards Winners from ﬁne wine estates, rare spirit distilleries, industry organisations, and professionals

nominated by the respondents through voting in the 2024 Report Survey for eight Golden Vines® Award Categories.

Responses and votes in the Report have been weighted based on each respondent’s wine qualiﬁcations (whether Masters of Wine, Master Sommelier, Advanced Sommelier, DipWSET, and ASI Diploma) as well as years of ﬁne wine experience, and the nature of the voters.

The 2024 Golden Vines® Awards Winners determined by this Report were independently adjudicated by Deloitte LLP and have been conﬁrmed to be in accordance with The 2024 Golden Vines® Awards Voting Rules provided at the end of this Report.

The Master of Wine, Master Sommelier, and ASI Diploma qualiﬁcation holders were veriﬁed by the Institute of Masters of Wine, the Court of of Master Sommeliers (European and American Chapters), and Association de la Sommellerie Internationale.

The not-for-proﬁt 2024 Golden Vines® Awards Gala has been held at The Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid, Spain on 26th October 2024, where the winners of all 2024 Golden Vines® Award Categories were awarded with their 2024 Golden Vines® Award Trophies. The event, as well as associated 2024 Golden Vines® Online Auction (formerly known as The Golden Vines® Fine Wine, Rare Spirit & Experience Global Online Charity Auction) and The 2024 Sotheby’s Golden Vines® Live Auction raised funds for the Gérard Basset Foundation (UK charity number 1193020) with the objective of funding diversity & inclusion-focused wine, spirits and hospitality education programmes globally, including the headline Taylor’s Port Golden Vines® Diversity Scholarship, Internship & Mentorship Programmes in Wine worth £55,000 each respectively.

Dedicated to the memory of

Gérard Basset OBE MW MS MBA OIV MSc ASI World Champion

About Gérard Basset (1957 – 2019)

Gérard Basset (7 March 1957 – 16 January 2019) OBE MW MS MBA OIV MSc ASI World Champion was without question one of the greatest wine professionals of a generation. He was the ﬁrst and only individual to hold the excruciatingly challenging Master of Wine qualiﬁcation simultaneously with the Master Sommelier, Bordeaux KEDGE Wine MBA and the OIV MSc; an achievement that is unlikely to be repeated for years to come. The crowning glory of his career came in April 2010 when he won the ASI World Sommelier Championship (Chile, 2010), cementing his extraordinary domination of the industry. This was further augmented on receiving the OBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to hospitality and again in March 2013 when he joined the ranks of the wine elite as Decanter’s Man of the Year. Most recently he was made Chevalier of the Mérite Agricole by the French Minister of Agriculture.

Parallel to this success was a growing business empire that many only dream of, for Gérard was a founding partner of the hugely successful Hotel du Vin Group, which grew to six hotels before it was sold to Malmaison for $66 million. During his ten years at the helm Gérard mentored and trained a generation of young sommeliers who sought out his expertise and guidance to launch their careers. Many have gone on to win industry awards and more still to launch their own successful businesses on the back of their experience at Hotel du Vin and, speciﬁcally, their grounding under Gérard.

“Named after our dearly beloved husband and father, The Golden Vines® Report (formerly known as The Gérard Basset Global Fine Wine Report) produced by Liquid Icons continues to showcase the trends and trajectory of the ﬁne wine world, getting ever more thorough and rigorous with each passing year. We are very proud that the Report promotes excellence through selecting the winners of the annual Golden Vines® Awards, celebrating the artistry of the world’s greatest wine estates, as this aligns very clearly with Gérard’s pursuit of mastery of his craft. We say a profound ‘Thank you’ to everyone in the wine industry for their support of the 2024 Report, and of the Gérard Basset Foundation’s mission to encourage and promote diversity and inclusion, alongside education and mentorship, in the wine, spirits and hospitality industries”.

– Nina Basset Chairperson & Co-Founding Trustee, The Gérard Basset Foundation

– Romané Basset Co-Founding Trustee, The Gérard Basset Foundation