Large-scale tastings can be hard on your palate. When it comes to international wine competitions, scoring 90 wines or fewer is manageable. The WineAlign system works with flights of eight, enabling tasters to evaluate fairly without losing focus. Throughout the day, there is plenty of time to taste, reflect on your findings and discuss them. (I used a similar approach when I ran the InterVin International Wine Awards.)There is an openness to rewarding different styles, such as warm and cool vintages, riper and more robust expressions, and cooler and leaner styles, of top-quality wines from Canadian vineyards.
Drinking plenty of water and taking regular breaks can help to avoid palate fatigue.
Australian wine shows, for instance, take a different approach. All the entries in a given category are presented to the panel at the same time, requiring as many as 50 glasses (sometimes more) to be tasted and judged. This rapid-fire approach is based on standardized calibration, which allows wines to be benchmarked against their peers, such as regional Shiraz or Riesling from a specific vintage. The aim is to identify high quality wines that display textbook regional character.
Is there a problem with these awards in that wines have to be submitted? So there could be great wines that never win anything because they are never entered into competitions.
Good question. A number of Canadian winemakers don't enter due to the cost of entry fees and shipping. They may already have sold out of their allocations, or they may be afraid of performing badly.
However, competitions like this one benefit both consumers and the industry by providing quality filters and benchmarking. The judges have tasted a wide range of wines, including those from producers not involved in the competition. The process involves group consensus rather than subjective assessment.
Wine lovers can be assured that the medal winners are well-made wines that stand out from the crowd. Winemakers are given an indication of how a panel of expert tasters rate their wines, with the top-scoring wines being tasted up to four times.
I find it fascinating to hear about the work that goes on behind the scene at wine awards. How do you taste so many wines?
Large-scale tastings can be hard on your palate. When it comes to international wine competitions, scoring 90 wines or fewer is manageable. The WineAlign system works with flights of eight, enabling tasters to evaluate fairly without losing focus. Throughout the day, there is plenty of time to taste, reflect on your findings and discuss them. (I used a similar approach when I ran the InterVin International Wine Awards.)There is an openness to rewarding different styles, such as warm and cool vintages, riper and more robust expressions, and cooler and leaner styles, of top-quality wines from Canadian vineyards.
Drinking plenty of water and taking regular breaks can help to avoid palate fatigue.
Australian wine shows, for instance, take a different approach. All the entries in a given category are presented to the panel at the same time, requiring as many as 50 glasses (sometimes more) to be tasted and judged. This rapid-fire approach is based on standardized calibration, which allows wines to be benchmarked against their peers, such as regional Shiraz or Riesling from a specific vintage. The aim is to identify high quality wines that display textbook regional character.
Is there a problem with these awards in that wines have to be submitted? So there could be great wines that never win anything because they are never entered into competitions.
Good question. A number of Canadian winemakers don't enter due to the cost of entry fees and shipping. They may already have sold out of their allocations, or they may be afraid of performing badly.
However, competitions like this one benefit both consumers and the industry by providing quality filters and benchmarking. The judges have tasted a wide range of wines, including those from producers not involved in the competition. The process involves group consensus rather than subjective assessment.
Wine lovers can be assured that the medal winners are well-made wines that stand out from the crowd. Winemakers are given an indication of how a panel of expert tasters rate their wines, with the top-scoring wines being tasted up to four times.