[B]ooths has been crowned Supermarket of the Year at the Decanter Retail Awards 2017. The awards recognise the UK’s best retailers and champion the best places to buy wine, based on the quality of their wine range, online and in-store innovation and customer service over the past 12 months.
Decanter is the wine industry’s go to publication for wine enthusiasts, connoisseurs and wine trade professionals, and the awards are judged by five experts, including Fiona Beckett, Guardian wine writer, and Matt Walls, Master of Wine.
Booths beat stiff competition including Waitrose and Marks and Spencer to win the award, and were in esteemed company amongst other winners including Berry Bros and Rudd and The Wine Society. Booths Wine Buyer Victoria Anderson said “It is a great honour to win this prestigious award. Booths has been importing wine since 1870, almost as long as we’ve been established and this year marks the second year since our Booths brand was given a stylish redesign. Remarkable food is at the heart of business at Booths and we pride ourselves on unearthing unique and often little known wines to match.
The Decanter Awards judges praised Booths wine range, citing intelligent promotions such as the ‘3-for-2 on wines over £10’, which encourages experimentation. ‘It’s a pleasure shopping there,’ said one judge.
“The wines we offer our customers exemplify Booths’ principles of quality, provenance and value and we enjoy close relationships with many smaller wineries, meaning that we often stock delicious wines with limited distribution in the UK, allowing us to bring something extraordinary to our customers.
“We work hard to introduce new and exciting wines to our range, and were thrilled by the success of our English Sparkling Wine, made for us by Ridgeview, which we launched back in May at the start of English Wine Week. We will soon be offering our customers a fantastic White Burgundy and a brand new Barolo, and marking our first venture into new world wine with a new Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and several others.”
Booths Chairman Edwin Booth said “We are delighted to have been recognised at the Decanter Retail Awards. I am so proud that Victoria is perpetuating the work that has been invested for years in developing our range and continuing our commitment to brilliant wine.”