The International Wine and Spirit Competition is the premier competition of its kind in the world. Its aim is to promote the quality and excellence of the world's best wines, spirits and liqueurs.

All wines, spirits and liqueurs are blind tasted in groups divided by variety, region and vintage as necessary. Awards are made on a points system and sponsored trophies are presented in selected categories. Technical analysis is carried out on Gold, Gold (Best in Class), Silver (Best in Class) award winning wines, spirits and liqueurs to ensure that all products are technically sound and will be of the same high quality when they reach the consumer as they were when the judging panels originally tasted them.

The English wine trophy will be announced at the IWSC Awards Ceremony in October.

This year, there were more entries from England than ever before; up nearly 50 % even on 2006. Twenty-six wines were awarded medals; with x5 Silver ‘Best in Class’ going to traditionally bottle-fermented sparkling wines but beyond this, a still wine from Nutbourne Vineyard and a rare dessert wine from Eglantine Vineyard also took this same acclaimed prize.