Norwegian Hotel Tops World's Best Wine Lists Awards

Park Hotel Vossevangen, a hotel in the small Norwegian town of Voss, has won Wine List of the Year at the World's Best Wine Lists Awards 2026, beating shortlisted venues from New York, Paris and Singapore.

The World of Fine Wine magazine presented the World's Best Wine Lists Awards 2026 on Monday evening, 21 September 2026, at The Savoy Hotel in London. Judges and representatives from shortlisted restaurants and hotels across six continents attended the ceremony.

Park Hotel Vossevangen did not stop at the top prize. The hotel also won World's Best Long Wine List and World's Best By-the-Glass List, three awards in total for one wine program. Reidar RR Johansen and Martin Nordell received the awards on the hotel's behalf.

Neil Beckett: this year's shortlist offers a truly diverse range of wine programs.

A World's Best Wine Lists sweep

Norway finished with three awards this year, all of them won by Park Hotel Vossevangen. The United States topped the country medal table with eight awards, the most of any nation. France and Singapore each won two. Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, China and Australia each won one. Judges handed out 21 awards across nine countries in total.

"Every year, the judges' task gets more difficult, and this year's winners, runners-up, and shortlisted establishments between them offer a truly diverse range of wine programs," said Neil Beckett, editor of The World of Fine Wine and chair of the judging panel. Francis Percival, the magazine's food editor, also judged this year's entries.

The cellar behind the winning list holds more than 47,000 bottles and over 7,000 labels, built up since 1979 inside a 122-room hotel. It is a scale more often associated with capital cities than with a town the size of Voss, and it draws comparisons with how other European wine lists are evolving.

Sydney claims a share of the field

The judging panel includes World Champion Sommeliers, Master Sommeliers and Masters of Wine alongside wine writers, the same pool of expertise behind other 2026 drinks honors such as the Gosset Matchmakers awards handed out in London earlier this month.

The Grill at The International in Sydney won Best Medium-Sized Wine List, a category for programs of 200 to 500 wines. Two sister venues, The International Wine Bar and Shell House Dining Room & Terrace, also placed in the top five, for Best Wine Bar List and Best Organic Wine List respectively.

The World's Best Wine Lists Awards has run since 2014, recognizing wine programs independent of a restaurant's kitchen or its Michelin status. The 2027 edition will test whether Park Hotel Vossevangen can defend all three of this year's titles.