Comments on mydailywine: Judging the wine judges

Small wine shows have lost their credibility nowad...

2009-01-31T04:46:00.000-08:00

Small wine shows have lost their credibility nowadays. The local show carries little weight now. The really big ones use multiple tastings to get the judging more coherent. Of course this makes the entry fee much higher, but you always have to pay for quality.

Yes, of course, a wine show is only as good at it'...

2009-01-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

Yes, of course, a wine show is only as good at it's judges.
But again, I think it comes back to the actual wine show process.
For example, at one show where I judged, the head judge was a very well known winemaker.
I have much respect for this man and his ability to make wine.
However, he had 'cellar palate' and the wines he liked reflected that bias.
He was adamant that we give the double gold to a wine that I knew was substandard. I held my ground and it got some lesser medal but sure enough, after the show, I saw the label and it was a $4.99 retail Chard made with oak chips and cheap grapes.
He was also very good friends with the show's organizer and I was not invited back the next year:)

Wine judgings, as you know from experience, Amy, a...

2009-01-30T08:30:00.000-08:00

Wine judgings, as you know from experience, Amy, are fraught with issues. First, is the mania to have as many wines as possible, tasted in very fleeting fashion by a number of judges what are limited because of costs.

But second, and even more of an issue, is the fact that judgings are staffed by amazingly incompetent tasters. I should know, having done many consecutive stints at L.A. County Fair (the best of them, in my opinion), Jerry Mead's New World Wine Competition, Harvest Fairs in Oregon, Sonoma, etc. In my experience, I'm often amazed by how certain judges got into the mix in the first place -- I've seen more than a few that couldn't tell a good or bad wine from a side of a barn.

Don't get me wrong, events like LA County Fair involve mostly judges who are extraordinary tasters of wine. It's that 15%-25% of the rest that I question.

So that's the biggest problem with competition: results are no better than the judges involved, and in the end, the results are reflections of "compromises" and mixed bags of competence.