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Sarah Jane Evans MW wins WSET Outstanding Alumni Award

Voted for by WSET graduates worldwide and Jancis Robinson MW, Evans MW beat off strong competition from the other notable nominees - Jeannie Cho Lee DipWSET, MW (Hong Kong), Michael Hill Smith DipWSET, MW (Australia) and James Tidwell DipWSET, MS (US), to take home the gong.

Evans MW will be presented with the award at the WSET Awards and Graduation ceremony in January 2018, at which Robinson, who will present the award, has been announced as a key speaker.

Introduced last year, in partnership with JancisRobinson.com, the award was launched to celebrate a WSET Diploma graduate who was "notably contributing to the industry".

With a "truly international reputation", Evans MW was a worthy winner, said Robinson. 

"Sarah Jane has fingers in a number of important pies and we particularly admire the way she spans the often yawning gap between food and wine - let’s have more like her,” she said. 

Beginning her career in book publishing, Evans MW spent a decade as associate editor of BBC Good Food magazine, during which time she was president of the Guild of Food Writers and completed the WSET Diploma in 1998, winning the Freixenet Scholarship. She became an MW in 2006 and won the Robert Mondavi Winery Award for the best results in the theory papers.

Spain and Sherry remain special interests; she’s a member of the Gran Orden de Caballeros del Vino, has received a number of awards in Spain, and is finishing a book on the Wines of Rioja and Northern Spain.