Neighbourhood wine merchant wins sustainable wine buyer award

Steph di Camillo, owner of Wine & Such wine shop in Blackheath, London, was awarded the Sustainable Drinks Buyer of the Year gong at the London Wine Fair (LWF) 2026, which took place the end of May.

Winning the Sustainable Wine Buyer category was ‘a real surprise and a huge honour’, Di Camillo told Decanter.

‘As a small, independent shop with just one full-time employee (me), it’s easy to assume these awards are out of reach. But sustainable wine has shaped Wine & Such from the very beginning, so to have that recognised by our peers means a great deal. It’s a lovely reminder that small local shops can still play a part in pushing the conversation forward,’ she said.

The judging panel – made up of sustainability consultant Anne Jones, writer and competition director Chris Losh, and myself, Natalie Earl, Decanter’s sustainability editor – found that Di Camillo’s entry was informed, honest and backed up pertinent facts and examples. It was evident that sustainability was not only at the core of the sourcing model, but also integral to how the shop runs day-to-day.

‘Di Camillo’s submission was especially compelling because sustainability was threaded through her whole ethos as a buyer,’ said Jones, ‘Rather than focusing on a single initiative, she demonstrated a consistent approach that influenced the way she selected wines, worked with producers and developed her range.’

Losh said that overall the best entries showed how sustainability ‘was something that ran through every element of the decision making, like the wording in a stick of rock,’ and not simply ‘recycling a few corks’.

A second award is also given to the Sustainable Drinks Buying Team of the Year, which was picked up by Majestic this year.

Although it was clear during the judging process that many buyers do see sustainability as a core part of their role, Losh said that there was ‘a sizable proportion of entrants’ to the competition who didn’t fill in the section on sustainability at all.

‘Presumably either because they don’t see it as important, or because they recognise that their business isn’t doing much in this area. That’s both surprising and disappointing,’ he said.

The Wine Buyers Awards was launched in 2020, and the Sustainable Wine Buyer category was introduced in 2025.

The awards aim to acknowledge the influence that wine buyers have on creating trends, offering value, quality and innovation across their ranges.

It recognises those that are embedding sustainability into the heart of their business, but it has also highlighted that the industry still has some way to go in this respect.