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2018 writing competition

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28 September 2018 We have a winner! And 10 runners-up. See We have a winner...

25 September 2018 Just one more day when we will publish the last three competition entries and then much rolling of drums throughout Thursday before we announce the winner this Friday.

18 September 2018 In the run-up to the announcement of our winner (as yet undecided) on 28 September, we are publishing three entries a day over the next week or so, up to and including 26 September. Those who find these short accounts of discovering wine's allure a distraction can access our many other articles from the home page where competition entries are no longer listed individually. Those who enjoy the entries can find an index of them below and can easily access them from the Articles listing.

12 September 2018 A number of respondents to our recent call for feedback expressed frustration at the extent to which competition entries have colonised the home page, so from now on we are removing them from the home page and listing them only on the Articles page. But we will continue to list links to them below as they are published between now and 28 September when we will announce the winner. We hope this solution is acceptable to both those who are enjoying these very varied contributions from all over the world and those who seek a clearer path to everything else we are publishing.

1 September 2018 We will continue to publish these great tales throughout the month and plan to announce the winner on 28 September.

25 August 2018 Our competition is now closed. HUGE thanks to the nearly 200 wine enthusiasts around the world who have taken the trouble to tell us about what lit the wine flame for them. We are still sifting through all the entries and will be publishing many more before announcing who has won.

20 August 2018 We're making it easier to track all the entries we publish – see the list at the end of this article – by presenting and keeping it at the top of the home page. We have been overwhelmed by the response to this competition and will be continuing to publish the best and most intriguing entries well into next month. Please note the final deadline is midnight this Friday 24 August UK time.

13 August 2018 Please note we have received so many entries worth publishing that, for a period, we are going to be publishing not just one entry a day, but two, seven days a week. Please keep visiting. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

10 August 2018 We are so appreciative of all these stories. But may I put in a plea for paragraphs, please. They make an article so much easier to read.

6 August 2018 Please note that entries may not be resubmitted with typos, spellings and/or grammar corrected. I'm afraid we have had so many entries we cannot afford the time to process, read and upload them twice!

4 August 2018 Today we publish the first of what will be many entries in this competition. We intend to add links to them all below, most recently published first. And we hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have.

30 July 2018 Entries are flooding in. Thank you all. We will begin publishing the best very soon – probably next week. The great majority are from men. Female wine lovers, please think of entering! Also, please attach a relevant JPG or PNG image (it need not be of you, but should be copyright-free) separately from your text. Note that images should be at least 600 pixels wide.

26 July 2018 It seems to me that for most people who fall in love with wine, there is one particular wine that did it. Or perhaps one particular wine experience.

For me it was a glass – oh all right then, half a bottle – of a Chambolle Musigny, Les Amoureuses 1959 that I was treated to when a student. (Such wines were very much cheaper then.) For our German specialist Michael Schmidt it was reading his father-in-law’s copy of the first edition of Hugh Johnson’s World Atlas of Wine.

Today we’re launching a competition to find the best account of the seminal wine or wine experience that lit the wine flame for you. We’d also like to know a little bit about you, and would like you to tell us when and where all this took place. Please send your account – as an attached Word document, please – anything between 250 and 1,000 words, plus a description of yourself and, as a separate attachment, a suitable copyright-free image (preferably landscape-shaped, at least 600 pixels wide and in JPG or PNG format), to editorial@jancisrobinson.com.

You have until 25 August to submit your account, but the sooner the better. We will publish the best, and will announce the winner, decided by us, in September.

The winner will receive a handsome box of six Jancis Robinson wine glasses (as below) worth £200, a special glass polishing cloth (with instructions) plus a young-wine decanter (as above, in smart box of course) worth £100. Up to you what you put in them...

Get writing!