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Staging such a seamless two-week competition is no easy task: it requires a year of planning, and countless hours of physical and managerial labour to bring together the very best judges with the arduous task of tasting every single bottle of wine. Boasting more than 9,500 entries, the International Wine Challenge (IWC) has cemented its place as the best and biggest blind tasting in the world - and it only works through meticulous organisation.
A year in the life
Soon after the Awards dinner, work begins to compile the next entry kits for producers and wine merchants wishing to submit their wines. These entry forms are available in six languages in paper copy and online, via www.internationalwinechallenge.com
Once entries have closed, March is devoted to setting up the database systems prior to the wines' arrival. Entrants send at least four sample bottles of each wine for the judging. In early April, more than 40,000 bottles arrived at the Barbican Centre in London, where they are logged, categorised and coded by grape variety, style, country and region of origin in time for the first day of tasting.
In the first round, all wines entered are tasted and wines from particular regions are tasted against each other, i.e.: Meursaults against Meursaults.
For the tasting process, wines are 'flighted' into groups of eight to fourteen wines of the same category, wrapped in a bag (to ensure the tasting is blind) and tagged. They are then chilled if necessary.
A large part of the IWC's reputation is down to the quality and experience of its judges. This year, more than 370 winemakers, merchants and writers from around the world took part. Up to 1,500 wines are assessed daily. Tables of at least four tasters - who are told what style they are judging and can ask about the vintage, country and region of origin - score the wine out of 100 (see box, below). Wines scoring above 85 points are deemed medal-worthy and sent to the second round to join the 'seeds'.
Wines, which score less than 84, are sent for re-tasting by the co-chairmen to ensure that a good wine has not been missed. Provided that two of the four co-chairmen concur, a wine can be put back into the running for a medal and head into the second round, or be given a Commended (which means it's recommended as a wine worthy of purchase), or deemed un-recommendable and thus rejected from any further tasting. A member of staff at the checking table confirms that the wine on the tasting sheet matches the one in the bag.
In an average day, a judge on one of the 24 busy tasting tables might see between 72 and 90 bottles. The co-chairmen may taste up to 300 wines. If a wine is judged faulty at any stage, a replacement bottle is found and the suspect bottle sent to the Faults Clinic for analysis. In 2008, 5.9% of wines were found to be faulty: 3% were corked and 1.5%, as a percentage of all red wines, had excessive volatile phenols from Brettanomyces.
Week two is the second round, wines scoring above 84 points in round one are assessed again, with the judges deciding which, if any, medal they should receive (a wine can still be rejected or given a Commended at this stage). Wines are still grouped by grape and country/region, although, for example, Meursault may now be judged against other white Burgundies. The co-chairmen are again called upon to re-taste all wines to endorse the judges' decision; medals are confirmed, and then it's back to the checking table to confirm the bottle's identity.
In the final round of the Challenge, the co-chairmen taste all gold medal winning wines, once again blind, against others in the same category, with the best of the best being considered for a trophy. The panel can award new trophies, split them, or withhold them.
The final task is to decide the winners of special trophies and the champion wines. Once decided the IWC hosts it's black tie gala dinner at The Grosvenor Hotel, Park Lane, London where the champion wines, Winemakers of the Year and Merchants of the Year awards are all announced. A full list of all winners is available on www.internationalwinechallenge.com and within the World's Best Wines (the book dedicated to all the results of the IWC). Now it's your chance to buy these wines and make your own assessment.
How the wines are scored
At all stages, wines are marked out of 100, with the following points corresponding to the relevant award:
Gold 95 - 100
Silver 90 - 94
Bronze 85 - 89
Commended 80 - 84
Discovery Tasting
After the final Challenge round, a tasting for merchants and buyers is held for all wines entered in the Challenge that are not yet available in Britain. The IWC organisers believe this promotes a more diverse selection of wines to the UK buyers, as well as a platform for those seeking distribution in Britain.
What happens to the left over wine?
With four to six bottles of each wine sent by merchants and producers entering the IWC, some are inevitably left over, even after the numerous rounds of tastings and allowance for faulty wines. The IWC gives hundreds of cases of wine to selected charities and charitable organisations, including Barnardos, the British Red Cross, the Royal National Lifeboat Association and the Cai Dae Trust. Additional wines that remain are auctioned off and proceeds are given to The Wine & Spirit Benevolent Society and Wine Aid. |