Star Wine List 2026: Inddee Bangkok Wins Again in Skåne

Bangkok’s Inddee won Best Medium-Sized List for the second consecutive year at the Star Wine List 2026 Global Final, held on 15 June in Skåne, southern Sweden. According to Decanter, more than 130 sommeliers, chefs and restaurateurs from 28 countries travelled to the event, where 195 restaurants and wine bars were eligible for global Gold Stars across 10 international categories.

That is the useful fact for anyone who plans travel around dinner reservations and cellar access: Inddee, a Michelin two-star restaurant that opened in 2023, has now taken the medium-sized category twice in a row. Head sommelier Thanakorn “Jay” Bottorff is no longer simply running one of Bangkok ’s most discussed lists. He is running one the global judging panel has returned to, tested against peers from 14 territories and an online contest covering the rest of the world.

The ceremony carried its own geography. Terra Skåne, the provincial wine body, hosted the Global Final in southern Sweden. Before the awards at Holy Smoke, a barbecue eatery just outside Arild village, finalists visited Kullabergs Vingård for wine tastings from Terra Skåne estates, then continued to Arilds Vingård for a traditional Midsummer celebration.

Star Wine List 2026 Global Final: The Award Frame

The Star Wine List 2026 Global Final closed a season that ran through awards ceremonies in 14 territories across three continents, according to Decanter. Those regional competitions produced 195 Gold Star winners in various international categories, each then eligible for a global Gold Star in Skåne.

The scale matters because wine lists are not judged like finished bottles. A panel can taste the same 2019 Barolo or 2016 Rioja Gran Reserva in identical glassware and argue over structure, élevage and bottle age. A wine list is a different object: part cellar, part map, part service script. It reveals how a sommelier thinks about guests, pricing, cuisine, maturity, regions, growers and formats.

On 15 June, Decanter reports that some 130 representatives from 66 of the 195 eligible venues attended the final. Delegates came from as far away as New Zealand, Seychelles, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Mauritius and the Maldives. These were not abstract entries on a spreadsheet; many of the people who build, cost, pour and defend these lists were in the room.

Star Wine List selected winners across 10 international categories. The source material names Inddee ’s Best Medium-Sized List win as the central result for Bangkok, and it is the category most useful to diners who do not equate cellar scale with pleasure. A medium-sized list has to choose. If a by-the-glass section, Champagne page, Burgundy allocation or sake pairing appears, something else must give way. The architecture becomes visible.

That is why Inddee’s repeat win carries more weight than a single trophy night. The restaurant opened in 2023 and already holds two Michelin stars, according to Decanter. Its wine program has now taken the same global Gold Star twice in succession. For a collector visiting Bangkok, that narrows the field. For a sommelier, it raises the harder question: what does a medium-sized list need to do so well that four Master Sommeliers return it to the top of the category?

Why Inddee Bangkok Won Best Medium-Sized List Again

Inddee’s win begins with curation rather than volume. Decanter identifies Thanakorn “Jay” Bottorff as head sommelier, and the acceptance speech gave the clearest sense of how he thinks about the list. “I genuinely believe it's a wine list that actually has soul, and I'm, happy about it!” said Thanakorn 'Jay' Bottorff.²

That detail is the hinge. Instead of asking guests to begin with Burgundy, Piedmont, the Mosel or the Cape, the list appears to invite them into a geography of influence: maritime, islanded, inland. You can imagine how useful that becomes at the table. A guest who says they want saline tension, orchard fruit, volcanic bite or a red with less obvious oak gives the sommelier room to move across appellations rather than march down a familiar hierarchy.

Decanter also reports that Ferran Centelles, joint Regional Chair for Spain at the Decanter World Wine Awards and a judge of Southeast Asia wine lists, praised Bottorff’s list for its presentation and depth. The exact bottles are not provided in the source material, so we should not pretend to know which producers carried the program. The point is still clear enough: the judges saw both design and stock, not merely a clever table of contents.

Inddee also faced named runners-up in the category, including The Four Horsemen and Peasant in New York City and Trivet in London, according to Decanter. All runners-up in the final received global Silver Stars. Those names give Inddee’s Gold Star a sharper outline for travellers. New York and London are cities where restaurant wine culture has long trained diners to expect mature bottles, small allocations and sommeliers fluent in grower Champagne, Jura, Loire Cabernet Franc and old-school Piedmont. Bangkok’s win in that company is not a courtesy nod to geography. It is a result from a global final.

The Master Sommelier Panel Behind the Gold Stars

The Star Wine List 2026 jury carried serious credentials, and Decanter names the four judges who deliberated over the 195 eligible venues: Doug Frost MS MW, Stefan Neumann MS, Piotr Pietras MS and Jonathan Gouveia MS. Frost is identified by Decanter as one of only five people to have held both the Master Sommelier and Master of Wine qualifications. Neumann is listed as Regional Chair for Austria and Switzerland at the Decanter World Wine Awards.

Those letters after a name are not ornamental in this context. Judging wine lists asks for fluency across regions, vintages, pricing logic, restaurant service and cellar maturity. A list can look grand because it contains trophy domaines; it can drink poorly if every bottle is too young, badly sequenced or unreachable for the menu. Another list can look modest on paper and outperform through smart glass pours, precise vintage choices and a sommelier team that knows where to steer a table after the first bottle.

Decanter reports that Jonathan Gouveia described the task of judging the world’s best wine lists as comparable to being a food critic at the world’s best restaurant, calling it both humbling and terrifying. The line matters because it acknowledges the risk inside any award of this kind. A wine list is the visible part of many invisible decisions: what to buy, what to age, what to pour now, what to hold back, what to price generously, what to omit.

For collectors, that is precisely why a Master Sommelier panel can be useful. The award does not tell you that a specific bottle is available on a specific evening. It tells you that trained judges have read the program as a whole and found enough coherence to give it a global Gold Star. If you are travelling with limited nights in Bangkok, that reduces guesswork. If you are building your own cellar, it offers a model for selection: do not only accumulate names; build routes through taste, place and maturity.

From Fourteen Territories to Holy Smoke in Skåne

The route to Skåne began long before the barbecue at Holy Smoke. Star Wine List’s season, according to Decanter, moved through 14 territories spanning three continents, alongside an online contest that incorporated the rest of the world. From those stages, 195 restaurants and wine bars won Gold Stars and entered the global field.

That qualification pathway gives the final its scarcity. A diner may see thousands of good restaurant wine lists in a year of travel; only 195 venues reached this global eligibility pool. Of those, representatives from 66 venues attended the June final in southern Sweden. For the trade, that room would have been dense with people who understand the cost of carrying mature Champagne, the politics of allocation, the quiet pain of a corked bottle from a last remaining case, and the guest who wants a 20-year-old Bordeaux at a price from a decade ago.

Skåne was not merely a neutral host name on the invitation. Terra Skåne, the provincial wine body, hosted the final, and finalists visited Kullabergs Vingård for tastings from Terra Skåne estates before the ceremony. They then attended a traditional Midsummer celebration at Arilds Vingård. For a wine traveller, those details are more useful than a generic gala description. The day joined awards judging with local vineyards, then placed the final at Holy Smoke outside Arild village rather than inside a hotel ballroom.

There is an appealing tension in that setting. Star Wine List gathered sommeliers from Thailand, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and other far-flung markets in southern Sweden, then asked a provincial wine body to host the global finale. The event’s geography reminds you that wine culture now moves through more than the old capitals. A serious dinner list can come from Bangkok; a global final can take place in Skåne; the pre-ceremony tastings can come from local Swedish estates.

What Inddee’s Repeat Win Means for Collectors and Wine Travellers

Inddee’s second consecutive Best Medium-Sized List award is not a market forecast. It does not prove that a particular producer will become harder to buy, and it does not tell you which vintages Bottorff’s team currently holds. The useful reading is more disciplined: this award identifies a restaurant where the list itself has been judged as a destination.

For collectors, that matters in three ways. First, a category win from a field of 195 eligible venues offers a filter. You may already know which domaines you want to drink; the harder question is where to drink them with a kitchen and sommelier team that will not flatten the experience. Second, the medium-sized category points to selection pressure. A smaller list forces sharper choices. Third, repeat recognition reduces the chance of a one-season accident. Inddee has now been judged at the summit of its category in consecutive years.

For wine travellers, the Bangkok signal is even clearer. Inddee opened in 2023 and is already a Michelin two-star restaurant, according to Decanter. Add Bottorff’s second global Gold Star for Best Medium-Sized List, and the restaurant becomes part of a specific itinerary: not simply fine dining in Bangkok, but fine dining where the wine list has been built with enough personality to stand apart from larger cellars.

Rather than arriving with a fixed demand for a famous appellation, you might give the sommelier a direction: sea influence, island freshness, inland depth. That is not a gimmick if the bottle choices support it. It can open the table to wines you might not have ordered from a conventional regional index.

The next Star Wine List season will show whether Bangkok’s momentum continues, whether another medium-sized program catches the judges’ eye, and how Skåne’s turn as host lingers in the memory of the sommeliers who gathered there. For now, Inddee has given travelling wine lovers a clean instruction: keep Bangkok on the dining map, and read the wine list before you read the menu.