The internationally followed wine writer and judge has served as a member and co-leader of the Nederburg Auction selection panel for several years. During this time, he cemented his reputation as a practical and sensible judge, as being exceptionally knowledgeable about South African wine – and not shy to vigorously defend his annual choices for inclusion or exclusion of wines in the Auction line-up.
This willingness to speak his mind will be very much in the foreground during his keynote address at the Auction when he tackles the sometimes controversial subject of South African wine heritage: whether it is a boon or burden to the local industry, and to what extent South African producers should depend on past successes to ensure icon wines in the future?
Given his strong views on SA wines, often masked with the characteristic dry wit that has made him such a popular and widely published writer and speaker, Atkin is bound to both stir and delight during his keynote address on Saturday, 17th September, prior to the start of the day’s bidding.
Atkin is widely respected for his amusing and often controversial presentational style. In 2010 he was the keynote speaker at the Fine Wine Conference in Ribera del Duero and moderated a panel on emerging markets at the Masters of Wine Symposium in Bordeaux. He has judged wines in the UK, France, Italy, the United States, Georgia, Argentina, Spain, South Africa, Chile and Australia.
Atkin writes for Woman and Home, The World of Fine Wine, Gourmet Traveller Wine, Jamie Magazine, Fine Drink Magazine (China) and The Economist’s Intelligent Life and appears regularly as a wine expert on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen. He is also one of the popular Three Wine Men with Olly Smith and Oz Clarke, co-hosting half a dozen consumer weekends each year in the UK.
His website, timatkin.com, is widely read, quoted and re-Tweeted. He has a second career as a photographer whose photos have been published in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and the World of Fine Wine and exhibited in London, Provence, Colombia, Poland and Lebanon. Tim writes an annual report on the South African wine scene, including his controversial South African Wine Classification.
In 2012, Atkin was named as one of Wine Intelligence’s 10 for 10 (people who had made a positive and lasting impact on the wine industry). He is the co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge, the world’s most rigorously judged blind tasting competition. He has won more than 30 awards for writing, among others the Glenfiddich Wine Writer Award, the Wine Guild of the United Kingdom’s Wine Columnist of the Year, the Wines of France Award and The Bunch Award, described by Auberon Waugh as the “Booker Prize of wine writing”.
Awards
Glenfiddich Wine Writer Award 1988, 1990, 1993, 2004, 2006
Wine Guild Columnist of the Year 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996
Wines of France Award 1994
Bunch Award 1995
Lanson Wine Writer of the Year 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004
Wines of Portugal 2005
IWSC Communicator of the Year 2007
World Food Media Awards Best Drink Journalist 2007
Louis Roederer Columnist of the Year 2009
Born Digital Award for timatkin.com 2011
Louis Roederer Wine Website of the Year 2011, 2013
Wine Intelligence Ten for Ten Business Award 2012
Finalist, National Theatre Port Urban Photography Competition 2013
Special Mention, Terroirs d'Images Photography Awards 2013
Fortnum & Mason Online Drink Writer of the Year 2014
Louis Roederer On Line Drink Writer of the Year 2014
Louis Roederer Feature Writer of the Year 2015