Based on the emails we have been getting it seems punters just want to know more about how everyday wines become award winning wines. So off we went to another wine show in our never ending quest to understand the world of swirl, sniff, sip, spit.  For the time poor amongst you, the road from everyday wine to award winning wine starts with a show, goes through the judging process and ends with the awards dinner.

First the show. The Tasmania Wine show differs from the Royal Hobart International because it is a regional show. While the Royal Hobart International includes entries from Tassie, that big island to the north and the land of the long white cloud (NZ) the Tasmanian wine show only accepts Tasmanian wines.

A regional show also has different entry requirements, specifically they are cheaper and an exhibitor doesn't need to provide so much free wine. As a result smaller producers have the chance to receive recognition and exposure.  All this is fascinating but more importantly it means that punters have a great opportunity to taste a huge range of Tasmanian wines. There is a public tasting once the judging is complete and for $30 you get to try all the entries as well as seeing which wines caught the eye (or should we say palate) of the judges.

Ok we now have a show so we need judges. By the way, you will be pleased to hear that we learnt a few lessons from our previous foray into the wine show caper so this time we expended a bit more effort. On the plus side, this paid off with PJ being able to watch the actual judging and spend a few minutes with the full judging panel.  Unfortunately, despite this meagre experience, PJ now regards himself as a bit of an expert.

 

"It's not a spectator sport! Basically the judges sit in a room with what seems an endless line of wine glasses. They peer at each and then do the swirl, sniff, sip and spit.  They scribble down a score, a comment and it's on to the next.  It's like being in my local library - you get the hushed and serious atmosphere just a lot less slurping and spitting!. Just like a library if your voice got over a barely audible whisper you are quickly told to shush.  This happened to everyone no matter who they were, both Phil Laing (President of the Tasmanian Wine show Society) and Steve Hookwood (Vice President) told me they have fallen foul of the 'shush police'."

The point of the judging is to separate the wines and identify those that are deserving of medals (gold, silver and bronze). This separation has to be done in a professional manner by people who the industry regards as 'worthy'. In this respect the Tasmanian Wine show has a lot going for it.  Our observations convinced us that it is a very professionally run show. All the people involved work very hard to make sure that the show delivers the best outcome possible and this is the reason that it has run successfully and become increasingly important over it's 19 year history. The show has also been able to secure the services of Huon Hooke and James Halliday for almost all of that time.   Having such consistency in the judging panel is unusual and results in both a high quality of judging and a long term perspective being applied when rating the wines. This unique perspective is really appreciated by the exhibitors and makes the judges feedback invaluable.  In addition, each year they are joined by other equally good but less well known industry figures.

 

Once the judging is over it is time to announce the winners and this brings us to the award dinner.  If this year was anything to go by, the Tassie wine industry knows how to party.  It required a huge effort for us to remain focused and professional in the face of a beer and sparkling wine fuelled river cruise, several courses of gourmet food and large amounts of gold medal winning wine but you will be happy to know somehow we managed it (see how we suffer for you? - Ed).  

What surprised us was that, considering it was an industry function, the dinner was a very enjoyable social occasion in it's own right.  Being first timers we were very impressed with the friendliness of the other attendees even before the drinking started!  The award dinner gives all the viticulturalists and winemakers an opportunity to 'frock up', see who won what and to hear from the judging panel.  Both Huon Hook and James Halliday passed on their thoughts about the entries at the show and how those entries compared to previous years. 

 

Specifically Huon Hook discussed the judges findings and comments for the Sparkling, Riesling and Chardonnay entries and you can listen to his speech in full here - well worth it in our view.  

But to help you decide what wines to look for here is a summary of what he said.

Tassie sparkling has really improved over the last 15 years. 

If you are into Rieslings the 07 vintage are the ones to buy.  Tasmanian Rieslings are at their peak at two years old.  In keeping with this, the 06 Rieslings were, according to the judges, particularly disappointing.

Tasmania is particularly good at producing both unwooded and wooded chardonnays.  In fact the 07 wooded chardonnays were the highlight with almost half of them winning a medal.  To finish Huon made the point that, based on the entires in the Museum class Tasmanian chardonnays resolve any doubt about the aging capacity of Australian made chardonnays.

Not to be outdone James Halliday got up to deal with the Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, Sweet Rieslings, Rosé and Pinot show entries. Again you can hear his speech in full here or you can read our summary.   

As a variety, James doesn't really like Pinot Gris which he points out has " been described by a New Zealand wine maker as being like creating a picture using white paint".  He went to state that "I don't have a single bottle of Pinot Gris in my cellar and I will go to my grave never having ordered a bottle ... in a restaurant" (still with us Pinot Gris lovers? - Ed).  However he does accept that punters love it and it does help the industry make a profit. He also accepted that some of the Pinot Gris entries "were pretty darn good".

Moving on to Sauvignon Blanc James again made his feelings clear by referring to many of the entries in this class as "Pinot Gris with lots of acid" although he acknowledged that there were two good wines. If you are still not clear should you meet James don't say savvie blanc lest you lose his respect.

 

The situation was better when it came to medium sweet Rieslings. "Tasmania is still the leader in a rapidly growing pack (of producers)".  What this means is that if you like a sweeter style Riesling James is recommending that you look to wines such as the Frogmore Creek FGR,  Darlington TGR, or the Bream Creek VGR.  The fully sweet wines were even more successful. "Nine entries, eight medals".  Tassie sweet Rieslings are usually marketed as iced wines but as you can see from Jame's comment they are all good.

To finish the focus moved to Pinot Noir.  If you want to buy a good pinot then, according to James, look to the 07 and 06 vintages.  As he said "Tasmania is the epicentre of pinot making in Australia and I don't see that changing". Supporting this comment was the fact that 63% of the 07 and 70% of the 06 Pinot entries received a medal.  So the message is pretty clear punters drink Tassie pinot.

So there you go our take on the wine show process and hopefully we have sated your appetite for the world of swirl, sniff, sip, spit although it's just as likely you are still none the wiser. 

You can see a list of the winners as well as other interesting stuff on the show at taswineshow.org .  We would like to congratulate all the medal and trophy winners and, based on the quality of the wine we drank at the trophy dinner, there are a lot of people who deserve the coveted winepunters bow of approval.  Although a special mention has to go to Neil Snare (Winstead vineyard) who's clean skin (the Instead) snagged a bronze for his 08 Pinot Noir.

If you are interested we have more photos from the show in our gallery.

What do you think?  Send us a comment

Huon_white_comments.mp3 (10 mb, 14:36 min duration). Huon discusses the Sparkling, Riesling and Chardonnay entries in the 2009 Tasmanian Wine show. Left click on link to play or right click - select 'save target as'- to save file.

Halliday_red_comments.mp3 (8.95 mb, 13:00 min duration) James discusses the remaining entries in the 2009 Tasmanian Wine  show. Left click on link to play or right click - select 'save target as'- to save file.

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