An Interview With Annette Lacey - 2014 Vin de Champagne Award Winner (professional category)

Annette Lacey, 2014 Vin de Champagne Award winner

Presented every two years by the Champagne Bureau, the Vin de Champagne Award is the premier wine award for champagne enthusiasts in Australia.

Revered for its rigorous testing and vetting process as well as its ultimate prize of a unique two week educational tour to Champagne, the Vin de Champagne Award attracts entrants into two categories: professional or amateur.

Finalists battle it out in front of Australia's leading experts on all things champagne, showcasing their knowledge and sensitive palates during an intense blind tasting and interview.

The 2014 grand final was held in Sydney in September, which also marked the 40th anniversary of the awards.  

Annette Lacey emerged as the professional category winner whilst Tom Warrell secured the amateur category.

Annette is currently the Head Sommelier at Pei Modern, Sydney. She has worked at some of Sydney’s best restaurants including Banc, Marque and Claude’s. She is also a lecturer for Professional Sommelier classes and the internationally accredited Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) wine courses for industry professionals.

Her past accolades include the 2001 Len Evans tutorial and winner of the 2000-2001 Deveaux and Rosemount Sommelier competitions. Annette is currently a Master of Wine Candidate, having successfully passed the rigorous tasting paper.

I recently had the privilege of interviewing Annette about her Vin de Champagne Award experience. I hope this will provide some useful insight for those would-be award entrants, but also for those who simply love to learn about champagne.

What inspired you to take a specific interest in champagne (as opposed to any other wine)?

Actually, I love all wines, but what I love the most about champagne is the complexity and the time involved to create the final product. This can be said of all wine, still and sparkling, but with champagne it truly is a unique style that is hard to replicate.

Adelaide Champagne Masterclass - The Apothecary

Adelaide's an unassuming place. Underneath the subdued and relaxed surface, there are hundreds of micro-communities buzzing about food and wine.

On any given hour of any day, South Australians can be found partaking in wine courses, rolling up to cellar doors, writing wine and food blogs, ambling along to wine festivals or simply sitting in the sun with a bottle of our local plonk on the table. It's all about supporting our wine producers and enjoying our high quality, delicious wine.


(l-r) Jim Smith, Jane Bromley and Dr Patrick Iland.

Scratch the surface deeper again and you will find an almost clandestine group of people who are not only die-hard champagne enthusiasts, they are Australia's finest champagne palates.

A week ago I was privileged to attend a champagne masterclass with all of them in a room at the same time. It wasn't a publicly advertised event - purely word of mouth circulated amongst those in the local champagne 'know'.