of the International Wine Challenge © by Nigel Lelew
From it's beginnings 16 years ago the Challenge has grown enormously. In it's first year it attracted interest from around 50 wines ... not quite the start that the organisers envisaged. Very quickly though, the Challenge grew into what it is today. This year there were over 9 300 wines entered to be swirled, sniffed and slurped over a two week period to come up with a score and tasting notes for each and every wine tasted. The aim is to award gold, silver and bronze medals to the wines that deserve one. For those that don't quite make the grade there is a kind of runners-up category of Seal of Approval and then there are those wines that don't achieve anything. At the end of it there are, of course, some winners and some ... well ... non-winners. Now you may think that those that taste and score the wines have a glamorous task. You'd be wrong. As one who has done a three-day stretch tasting and scoring at the Challenge it's hard work. It really is! At the end of the day the last thing you want to see is another glass of wine! To become a gold medal winner, a wine has to be good. This year out of the total entry, there were less than 200 gold medal winners ... that's around one in every 50 wines. So the message is that to strike gold at the Challenge, a wine really does have to be exceptional. it's an absolutely huge undertaking. For each wine entered, four bottles are sent to London in preparation for the mamouth tasting. Can you imagine the space needed for 37,000 bottles of wine ... no, nor can I! Two floors of a Docklands office building were needed to accommodate the Challenge this year. It wasn't just space for the wines though, just think about over 400 tasters to be accommodated as well as the small army of helpers too. So what's this huge logistics exercise all geared towards. Well, quite simply it's about telling the wine buying public what's good and what's even better on the shelves. Yes the wine retailers flaunt their results for all they're worth, but it all boils down to giving objective advice on the wines to buy. If you're thinking that to be able to buy one of the gold medal winners you'll need to sweet talk the bank manager, then think again. The Challenge also awards Wine of the Year accolades, which picks out gold and silver medal winners which are readily available on the High Street and that offer exceptional value for money. So raise your glasses for Britain and the International Wine Challenge ... cheers and well done. If you have any comments or questions please e-mail me at nigel@vinrouge.co.uk Oct. 17, 2000
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