World’s Best Wine Photographs 2024

Who would have thought Cava capsules (top) could be so fascinating? Or an image of a cellarhand wrapped in a hose (above) could be so atmospheric?
That’s the great thing about the annual Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year competition – it shows a world we are all so familiar with in a new light. These weren’t even the winning photos.
The image of the Cava capsules – taken by Finnish photographer Mari Moilanen at bodega Villa Conchi in Spain – came third in the produce sub-category of the competition, which is part of the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year contest.
French photographer Guenhaël Kessler’s image of a ‘Knot in the Cellar Pipes’ – taken at Domaine du Bois de Saint Jean in the Rhône Valley – came third in the people sub-category.
Guenhaël won the produce sub-category with this image (below) of a fermentation in a tank. ‘In the Tank During Alcoholic Fermentation’, an almost abstract close-up of the vivid colours of fermentation, was captured for renowned oenologist Xavier Vignon in the Rhône Valley.


The overall winner was an image steeped in sunshine, Harvest in Volnay (main photo), by French photographer Thierry Gaudillère. The photograph – taken in the village of Volnay in the Côte de Beaune region of Burgundy, also won the places sub-category. The judges praised Gaudillère’s clever use of natural light capturing all the key players of harvest – the horse, the tractor and the pickers – in a tableau scene of shadows on the dust track.
The people sub-category was won by fellow French photographer, Jonathan Thevenet, for Les Liens du Vin (below), an image captured at the Aegerter estate in Burgundy. With harvest in full swing, all members of the family are involved in the action – some more hands-on than others!


“The quality of the images overall was outstanding and I love the way the three category winners evoke the conviviality and excitement of grape-picking and the sheer beauty and colour of winemaking,” says Joanna Simon, wine writer and member of the judging panel. “The two vineyard photographs both show the harvest in action and yet they couldn’t be more different – different people, places and times of the day captured for all time from very different viewpoints.”

Cheers to Lola

Here are the runners-up in each sub-category:


Second in the people sub-category was this colourful image by Spanish snapper Juan Miguel Ortuño. It shows Lola at work in a winery in Jumilla, Spain. She does one of the hardest jobs, cleaning and emptying the tanks. In two months, she cleaned 60 tanks with her own hands.


German photographer Heike Witzgall took this photo, which came second in the produce sub-category, during the harvest at Rustenberg Winery in Stellenbosch, South Africa. “The interplay of the four complementary colours that make up the motif particularly appealed to me. It is precisely this balance that corresponds to that of a perfect wine,” he said.


Witzgall also came second in the places sub-category. The new cellars of Chateau Haut Bailly in Pessac-Léognan, France, were put into operation for the first time in 2021. Architect Daniel Romeo designed the building as a place where people could feel good. The conical tanks allow individual vineyard parcels to be vinified separately.


Third place in the places sub-category went to UK photographer Jon Wyand for this image of winter-pruning in chilly Chouilly, in Champagne.