Richard Mayson at DWWA 2022 judging week.
Richard Mayson is one of the foremost fortified wine specialists of our time. The author of five books, including Madeira: The Islands and their Wines and Port and the Douro, Mayson is a regular Decanter contributor, also writing for the Oxford Companion to Wine and his own website.
In 1999, Mayson was made a Cavaleiro of the Confraria do Vinho do Porto in recognition of his services to the Port wine trade and has lectured on the region for many years at Leiths School of Food & Wine and the WSET school in London.
Graduating with a degree in geography from the University of Sheffield, Mayson commented, ‘ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by maps and geography.’ His interest in wine specifically began during these university years, completing a dissertation on the micro-climate of the vineyards of the Douro.
‘That indirectly took me into the wine trade where I worked at the Wine Society before turning freelance. I have always thought that wine is the most wonderful synthesis of different strands of geography, both physical and human. Good wine encapsulates a strong sense of place’ he explained.
Currently series editor for the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, Mayson will return to Decanter World Wine Awards judging week this May as Regional Chair for Port and Madeira, a position he has held for more than a decade.
With DWWA 2024 entries closing this week (15 March) and judging week approaching in May, we
