Decanter awards

I spent three decanter awards days last week chairing the Burgundy panel at the Decanter World Wine Awards. The competition has flourished over the 10 years since its inception, and now attracts over 14, decanter awards, entries for the various teams to taste.

Oh sure, I would register the Decanter stickers on wine bottles in the shops but it never influenced my buying decisions in any significant way. What I found was that the awards were not devised as some sort of wine trade accolade but were begun as a way for consumers to be assured they were buying quality wines in the marketplace. Steven pointed out that Decanter is a consumer magazine so it only makes sense that they give out awards that reward not only quality and value for money but also flag wines that might otherwise be overlooked. Their wines won 2 silvers, 1 bronze and 1 commendation in the Decanter Awards. This year Decanter received over 12, entries of which only 1. The gold medal wines are not only tested once or twice but three times.

Decanter awards

In equal measure, I feel interested to see the results and dismayed at the size of the package: pages of dense information. How to make sense of the results without spending hours and hours reading the ledger word for word? Going back to basics makes the most sense. I ask myself: what are the key messages from the wine awards? The value placed by Decanter magazine on the consumer benefits of identifying and promoting wine quality,. Recognizing the expansion of the wine industry into many more countries and wine regions than I would generally consider. Literally A to Z from Albania to Veneto. I count 68 countries and wine regions in total. Countries and wine regions are counted separately, for example: New Zealand is 1 entry and there are 6 French wine regions noted. This point is exemplified in the list of countries represented in the description of Platinum Best in Show wines. All Platinum Best in Category winners from around the world are pitted against each other to win the Platinum Best in Show. There are 34 wines in this category which triumphed over 17, entrants to the competitive process. Acknowledging the rich diversity of grape varieties and wine styles around the globe together with the complexity of wine production with issues of sustainability and environmental considerations in an ever changing world. In this context, the wine industry is an increasingly crowded market place with all that it implies in terms of running a business and succeeding; the risk and reward considerations are daunting.

What sets the Decanter Awards apart? I decanter awards there is a big change in Bordeaux towards more elegance and freshness, rather than trying to produce impressive wine.

Usually I spend my time exclusively on the Loire Valley , but this year I spent some time judging in Bordeaux as well. There was good social distancing within, and excellent adherence to mask-wearing. All participants judges, runners, Decanter staff and support staff self-tested for Covid antigen on a daily basis before attending. After my slew of tests before, during and after my recent trip to the Loire Valley, my daily Decanter tests mean right now I feel all tested-out. But it was the right thing to do. I know there has been a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure the judging could proceed in maximally safe conditions. The standard of samples submitted naturally ranges from the sublime to the… well, less than sublime.

Top medals showcase an exciting breadth of world-class wine regions on the West Coast, as New York winery also strikes Gold. In , more than expert judges, including 44 Masters of Wine and 11 Master Sommeliers, tasted a record 18, wines from 56 countries. Just 0. There were also Platinum and Gold medals awarded, making up 0. There were also six Gold medals for sparkling wines, and a cache of exciting Golds for wines that might normally fly below the radar. Virginia wines joined those awarded with a Silver and a Bronze win, and Arizona too made the list with two Bronze medals. Success for so many diverse US wines at DWWA also comes in a year when many across the wine world paid tributes to leading wine expert Steven Spurrier, the former Decanter consultant editor and long-time DWWA chair who died earlier this year. A tireless seeker of new wines, and an authority on established names, it was also Spurrier who organised the notorious Judgement of Paris tasting that helped put California on the world wine map. This is blind tasting. We get entries from every corner of the wine world, so it is as it were the closest you can get to a universal benchmark.

Decanter awards

The Decanter World Wine Awards has revealed a selection of medal-winning wines to evoke a taste of summer — no matter what the weather brings. Recently awarded at the competition, where more than expert judges, including 44 Masters of Wine and 11 Master Sommeliers, tasted a record 18, wines, the following winning French wines are available now from UK retailers. The classic Blanc de Blancs Champagne has been amply aged, and brims with the pleasures of age: a calm, steady mousse; refined aromas in which the fruit, bread and brioche of youth have given way to something deeper, stonier, more grounded in the natural world, the fruits calmed and sublimated, the acid profile rounded and smoothed while retaining all its energy.

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Use of this website constitutes acceptance of the Privacy Policy. We have experts but we are all aiming to award wines for the consumer. Anyway, there were a handsome handful of golds awarded in the Loire Valley , so I look forward to learning who has made the grade. It depends on what you mean by that. I particularly enjoyed inputting notes through the iPad, since that is what I do these days when tasting in cellars, and at least I can read what I have written afterwards. I hope so. Very intelligently, there is a range of different styles each day, rather than wading through a whole day of white, a whole day of Beaujolais and then a few pinots to conclude. At the end of the day it is not how you taste, it is how you drink. France, I think, stylistically it has remained pretty true to itself because every region is different and every region has its own parameters. Comment Reblog Subscribe Subscribed. Then a very top 50 out of 18, wines tasted.

The world's largest and most influential wine competition, Decanter World Wine Awards results offer a definitive guide to the dynamic world of wine.

I asked him what is the main aim of the panel of judges when they are judging the wine and he replied that the panel considers each wine in relation to the region, value for money and the quality of the each wine. What are you proudest about with the Decanter Awards? No one was doing it. ES EN. We were talking a little bit earlier about social media and how bored I get with looking at bottle shots and the old standard for Decanter was always to have two or three bottles on the cover, every month, month after month. To speak of the use of ceramic vats is to go back into. Which countries should be expect some big things from this year? How did you originally become involved with Decanter Awards? How are the judges selected? Instead of bustling rooms of excitement, the rooms are quiet, serious and sedate. The Champagne section, however, presents its own issues, as some of the most famous Champagnes have very distinctive bottles, and so the Champagne must be opened in secret beforehand and brought out on trays to the tables. Who does it benefit? After my slew of tests before, during and after my recent trip to the Loire Valley, my daily Decanter tests mean right now I feel all tested-out. We receive wines from Thailand, India, Kazakhstan and our judging process is unrivalled.