Wine
The best wine photographs of the year
Over the last month, we’ve been highlighting some of this year’s best wine photos on the @cluboenologique Instagram feed, courtesy of the Champagne Louis Roederer Artistry of Wine Award shortlist.
Featuring stunning shots from Leif Carlsson, Patrick Desgraupes, Thierry Gaudillere, Tim Hall, Alexandre James Rocca-Serra and Jon Wyand, our selection here highlights the dynamic world of wine – from tending vines in Switzerland and harvesting grapes in Chateauneuf-du-Pape to ageing wines in Priorat and celebrating a new vintage in Champagne.
The winner will be announced at a virtual awards ceremony on 9 September at 6pm BST; tune in via MMD UK YouTube, IGTV, Facebook or LinkedIn.
This wonderfully evocative shot was taken inside a small winery in Russilly, near Givry in Burgundy. Photographer Jon Wyand, who specialises in the region, published the book Four Seasons in Côte Chalonnaise last year.
Wyand’s second shot shows the cleaning up after décuvage – the drawing of wine from the vats – at Domaine Faiveley in Burgundy’s Nuits-St-Georges.
Alexandre James Rocca-Serra invites the viewer to take a peek inside the wonderfully atmospheric cellars of Alvaro Palacios in Priorat, which continues to raise standards and push boundaries in Spanish fine wine.
This stunning portrait, which Rocca entitled ‘Philosopher and Optimist’, features Dirk Niepoort, the relentlessly forward-looking Douro producer of Niepoort Vinhos.
Our first shot from Leif Carlsson, last year’s winner of the Roederer Artistry of Wine Award, captures owner Anselme Selosse of Domaine Jacques Selosse in the Côte de Blancs, Champagne, opening one of the domaine’s cuvées.
This spectacular second shot from Leif Carlsson shows Marie-Thérèse Chappaz of Domaine Chappaz tending the vines high in the Valais canton of Switzerland, with some help from one of her four-legged friends.
Taken by Patrick Desgraupes at Clos Saint Patrice in Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe, this shot captures the gnarled hands of a winemaker drawing a sample from a vat.
Also taken at Clos Saint Patrice – a monopole estate – Desgraupes shows the harvest in full swing under the watchful eye of owner Guy Jullian.
Thierry Gaudilere’s close-up of the opening of a tank in Beaujolais shows the grapes freshly harvested, the juice already running off them.
Also from Gaudilere comes this gorgeous, evocative shot of the Clos de la Pucelle vineyard in Puligny-Montrachet.
Another photo from Hall’s visit to Familia Torres earlier this year shows the Pago de Milmanda vineyard, a 15-hectare Chardonnay plot after which Torres’ most renowned white wine is named.
This haunting image of the Desterrats Estate in Costers del Segre, Spain, where Familia Torres makes a wine called Purgatori, was taken by Tim Hall in the swirling mist of a January dawn.
According to legend, misbehaving monks from the Montserrat estate were sent here to work out their penance in the rocky soils. It’s easy to see what inspired Torres to call the wine “Purgatory”.
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