It’s Wine Showtime!

As the dust settles on the trophies presented at the recent Royal Melbourne Wine Show, as the red stains slowly disappear from my less than sparkling pearlies, and as the alcoholic haze slowly fades from the heads of Peter Lehmann’s winemaking team, it’s time to wonder what it was all about.

What do wine shows mean? Are they of any use to the consumer? What is a gold medal, or even a bronze medal supposed to indicate? Should you ever buy a wine whose label isn’t choked by tiny replicas of medals and trophies?

If you’re remotely interested in wine, there’s a fair chance you might know who won the Jimmy Watson Trophy, awarded to the best one year-old red at the Melbourne show. Stand up, Peter Lehmann and team. Your 1989 Show Shiraz is a worthy winner. Unfortunately, dear reader, it’s equally unlikely that you have a clue that Kaiser Stuhl won The Wine Society Trophy, for the best open red at the Show, with its magical 1986 Red Ribbon Cabernet Sauvignon.

Wine shows are something of an enigma in Australia, the country which takes more trouble than any other by far to evaluate its wine in an structured agricultural show system. The very nature of wine shows exposes them to criticism of the sternest kind, yet no-one has seriously suggested a viable alternative.

Take the Jimmy Watson Trophy alone. Most people assume that through its sheer weight of publicity, it is the most important award made at the show. Far from it. For mine, the Wine Society Trophy is far more significant. It’s judged from mature wines already finished and bottled, which although sometimes admittedly quite scarce, are available for the public to buy.

Most of the wines from which the Watson is chosen, if not all, are unfinished and unblended. It is almost unreasonable to expect the wine being judged at the Melbourne Show to bear excessive resemblance to the wine ultimately released as the Watson winner.

Having said that, let me congratulate Mildara Wines for their handling of last year’s Jimmy Watson Trophy wine, the 1988 Jamieson’s Run red. For starters, they’ve barely increased the asking price of the wine, which flies against recent the traditional 50 surcharge for the judges’ discretion. You can pick up a bottle for an exceptionally reasonable, honest $12.99.

Secondly, Mildara have done the right thing by the wine itself. Once they won the trophy, they spent an extra $30,000 on oak casks to ensure that the whole batch of the wine to be sold as Jamieson’s Run was given precisely the same degree of quality oak treatment as the batch that took away the Watson. Very commendable, but in reality only a fair thing. Questions could certainly be directed to other less scrupulous previous Watson winners.

I happen to have a glass of Mildara’s excellent 1988 Jamieson’s Run in front of me. It has a bright, brick-red colour of medium to full depth. The nose opens with gamey, chocolate and vanillin oak. The fruit is a little closed in for the while, but spicy red berry flavours soon break free of the wood. The palate is silky-smooth and elegant, with sappy berry fruit matched by charry and lemony oak. It’s already drinking particularly well, for Mildara freely concedes it was made to be drunk young. Nevertheless, like any other well-made, well-balanced red wine without any fault whatsoever, it will definitely improve in the cellar for at least two years.

Having spent my second year as an Associate Judge at the Melbourne Wine Show, my opinions of shows and their worth have only changed marginally. Shows are worthwhile. For many small winemakers they represent a unique opportunity to have their wine evaluated against the best by a team of professionals who are available for independent and objective criticism. The general rise in the overall quality of Australian wine is due in no small measure to the professionalism of the show circuit.

How should the consumer view wine shows? You should first understand that many of Australia’s best wines are not entered into shows. Names like Petaluma, Mount Mary, Mountadam and Moss Wood come to mind. The reasons for their abstentions are many and varied.

Winemakers are prohibited from entering wines into shows at which they are a judge. They may not have sufficient quantity of a wine to meet minimum specified requirements. The winemaker or proprietor may feel that they have nothing to gain from entering shows. For a $25 dollar wine to win a very creditable silver medal behind a $13 gold medal wine could be a negative thing.

The winemaker may also feel that his or her wine may not have the depth of flavour or power to stand up and be fairly counted in a line-up of a hundred or more wines. Finally, the winemaker may dislike and distrust the show system itself.

This year the twelve judges and eight associates exhaustively worked their way through the mammoth 2,400 entries in three and a half days of tiring and often intriguing self-flagellation. Each male or female is confronted by roughly two hundred and twenty-odd wines each day, each of which are scored out of twenty and are then discussed if panel members disagree in their ratings. Wines with an accumulated average of 15.5 points out of 20 win a bronze, 17.0 win a silver, and 18.5 a gold medal.

It is hard work and I have yet to meet the judge who could honestly say that justice was indeed done to every entry tasted. It is difficult to fairly evaluate a delicate wine in the middle of three blockbusting year-old shirazes. The show system still has some evolution to do. Fortunately the wine committee of the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Society, which is responsible for all aspects of Melbourne wine show administration, recognises such concerns and is responding to them.

It’s rare that a poor wine wins a major award, such as a silver or gold medal. However, if you buy your wine from the listings of show performances on back labels, be aware that some classes are open to all wines of a given type with only a small quantity requirement, while other commercial classes are restricted to those with 2,500 dozen. It stands to reason that awards made to wines in open classes indicate a higher quality level than those in commercial classes. Unfortunately the only way you can ascertain the type of class the wine was entered in is to find a show catalogue.

Generally speaking, gold medals are only awarded to excellent wines, silvers to wines with some individuality and character, and bronzes to sound wines of quality, but rarely distinction. Remember, however, that the awards made reflect the combined feelings of three judges on a given day, and that all humans are as fallible as the system itself. It is possible to justify the inconsistencies found between results of different wine shows.

As I’ve said, the wine shows are far from perfect, but they’re the best alternative around. If money was no object they would take twice as long, the judges would work half as hard and the results might be slightly different. At the end of the day, however, granting that good wines do slip through the net, it’s hardly ever that a poor wine wins a trophy. With my Jamieson’s Run evaporating next to me as fast as ever, I’ll drink to that while I can. Please login to post comment