Wine prices may continue to creep upwards, but £50 remains a crucial price point on a wine list. We put the country’s top sommeliers to the test, asking them to submit their best wine under this magic mark, then blind tasted the lot at Imbibe Live. Clinton Cawood reports

£50 is something of an essential price point on a wine list, in almost all types of venues. For some it’s an upper price limit, whereas for others it makes up the substantial middle-section of the wine list – an affordable trade-up for hesitant customers beyond which many still won’t ever venture.

It’s therefore important that the wines around this point on a wine list are over-delivering – not easy with duty and wine prices rising every year.

Nonetheless, the 50 wines chosen here represent an interesting cross-section of regions, grapes and styles – and offer a fascinating snapshot of the wines that are exciting the country’s top sommeliers at the moment.

Plus, as it turns out, the wines themselves were pretty decent, achieving excellent scores when they were blind tasted by a sommelier panel at Imbibe Live.