EXCLUSIVE: IWSC joins Drinks Business

The International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) has just announced a partnership with trade publication the Drinks Business.

The IWSC's previous media partnership, with Harpers magazine, was severed when the magazine was sold to William Reed Publishing late last year.

'As soon as Nexus sold Harpers we put a call out to The Drinks Business,' Allen Gibbons, IWSC's executive director said.

'We already knew [DB publisher] Charlotte Hey well, so it was an obvious call to make.

'This new alliance won't change the way that the IWSC is run,' he added. 'We've already changed a number of things over the past couple of years and we have a program of development that we're pursuing over the next few years.'

The planned development includes the roll-out of IWSC judging to countries outside of the UK, using local judges to assess the wines. 'It will give us a bigger presence in those markets,' Gibbons said.

'We've also agreed a partnership with [tasting transcription tool] Tasting Buddy that will allow producers to enter their wines into the competition from a website.'

Hey said, 'The IWSC is the UK's longest-standing drinks competition and we see this alliance as a valuable strategic asset,' she says.

From the IWSC's perspective, the biggest opportunity arising from the new partnership will be in the field of promotion and marketing.

'The Drinks Business's circulation is about 10,000, which is much larger than Harpers, and the Spirits Business's reach is 13,000. This new partnership gives us a much broader reach,' Gibbons said.

The Wine Innovation Awards, the new competition run by the Drinks Business, will remain unchanged, a spokesman said.