British wine publication Decanter has announced that it will cancel its Decanter Asia Wine Awards (DAWA) and Shanghai’s Fine Wine Encounter, two of its flagship events in China, due to the threat of the fast-spreading COVID-19.
The news was announced by Decanter’s managing director Robin McMillan yesterday, in response to the current global COVID-19 pandemic, which already forced the publication to postpone its Decanter World Wine Awards in London.
In response to the current global COVID-19 pandemic, McMillan wrote to the wine judges and announced the news, “In September, we would normally be launching the Decanter Asia Wine Awards with judging held in Hong Kong, but in light of the current circumstances, and with the need to postpone judging week for the Decanter World Wine Awards until the Autumn, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to cancel the Decanter Asia Wine Awards (DAWA) for 2020.”
Hong Kong has introduced a two-week travel ban to all foreign visitors, and all domestic arrivals shall be forced to go through a 14-day mandatory quarantine, a policy that’s going to be effective until June 19.
Meanwhile, its Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter event, which usually corresponded with Prowine Shanghai, is also cancelled for this year despite being scheduled for November.
“In response to the current global COVID-19 pandemic, we at Decanter are following local Government and WHO advice and have made the difficult but necessary decision to postpone the Decanter Shanghai Fine Wine Encounter to 20 November 2021,” he wrote in a separate email.
“Whilst this event does take place at the tail-end of 2020, in making our decision, we had to take a view on our entire 2020 programme and provide clarity and direction to our many supporters, producers, partners and of course the Decanter team,” he continued.
The highly contagious COVID-19 has now moved westwards to Europe and the US, while China where the disease first originated has managed to contain the spread for now.
The disease has now sickened over 444,000 people globally and killed 20,000 globally, leading many countries to enforce nationwide lockdown to slow the spread. More than three billion people in the world are living under lockdown measures and the UN warned it’s becoming a threat to the whole humanity.
