Wine Show Medals - Do they represent the best of the best?

As I sat glued to the television screen last week, revelling in the festival of sport that was the Beijing Olympics, I couldn't help but think about gold medals and wine show awards in the wine industry.

Australia has easily the world's largest and most active wine show circuit, though the results of which are often hardly representative of Australia's finest wines - contrast this to the Olympics, which represent the absolute pinnacle of sporting achievement, with each countries absolute finest athletes on board.

Admittedly there is a big change in scale between a one in four year world event and an annual wine show (that is one of many similar shows) but even the most prestigious international wine competitions, rarely award medals and trophies to a nations finest wines (and definitely not the worlds best). Why is this?

For the answer we need to start with the wine, and notably, the absolute complexity of this peculiar fermented beverage. Wine is one of the most magically complex consumables on the planet - it is accurately described as a 'living thing', changing in flavour, texture, colour and smell over minutes, hours, days and decades.

The challenge then is to award a finite score & arrive at a 'winnner' with this product of seemingly infinite variables. Indeed, Australia's finest wines often take many years to develop and hit their peak drinking and as young wines can be a long way from a 'winner'.

Take Grange for example. There is a mantra in the wine industry, that you should never drink a bottle of Grange that is less than 10 yrs old. Considering that the current release (the 2003 Grange) is only 5 years old (and the fabulous 1998 sold out very quickly) it is simply not practical for Grange to be entered in wine shows when at their peak. Thus no Grange in wine shows!

Beyond this, the challenge lies with the structure of wine shows themselves. Traditionally run by Agricultural Societies, it has been alleged that many wine shows are seen as real money spinners for the respective organisers - with each wine submitted requiring a fee for entry, leading to even the not-for-profit Ag. Societies cottoning onto to a little earnings potential: They all have admin & promotion departments that require funding for survival. This further results in entrant number skyrocketing, with individual panels now regularly required to move through brackets of 100-150 wines without respite (and often before lunch).

Even the most hardened professional can tell you that after Wine 120, many wines can tend to blur into one, so what chance has the Greatest Wine in Australia got if it is Wine 133? Further, if you have a lineup of 150 2 yr old Shiraz, which wine do you think is going to shine through and stick out in your mind? The subtle, elegant & light weight cool climate style or the massive, super sweet and incredibly rich Barossan power house? The biggest, which by default, must be the best!

To further compound the issue, two of the most famous trophies given to Australian wines - the Jimmy Watson & the Stodart - are both judged on one yr old red wines. These 1 yr old reds needn't even be a finished product - they can just be a tricked up barrel sample prepared especially for the one wine show, which will take out the trophy and then get poured back into the 10,00 litre blend!

The result is that Australia's finest wines (particularly those from boutique producers) are rarely submitted to wine shows, with top producers realising that word of mouth (and wine in mouth) will sell the wine, with critics and consumers doing more for a wine's reputation than a gold medal or trophy.

So what, if any, value should we place on a gold medal or trophy win? In essence, it all comes down to the individual show. The smallest wine shows are usually focused on wines from a single region - like the Adelaide Hills or Mudgee wine show. These regional specific shows serve to 'improve the breed' in the classic agricultural mindset, but their absolute focus on regional styles tends to lend itself to more relevant results. For example, the winner of the best Chardonnay at the Margaret River Wine Show will be, by nature, an excellent example of a Margaret River Chardonnay. As a result, if you are looking for regionality, then don't discount the results from the small wine shows.

From here, the next level up is the capital city wine shows - Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney etc. At this level things start to get murky, with the aforementioned unfinished wine fiascos, burgeoning classes and occasionally amazing results. A gold medal or trophy at this level usually indicates a good wine, but not necessarily a great wine. Five trophies and 6 gold medals however, is a fair indication that a particular wine has all the attributes that the judges are looking for. Given the quality of judges in Australia, this is a fair indication of a very fine wine indeed (but may never be the greatest).

Finally we come to the exceptions - there are two particular wine shows in Australia who take the quality expectations a further level up - The National Wine Show and The Sydney International Wine Show. At the National Wine Show, wines may only be entered if they have been awarded a medal at a previous wine show - effectively reducing the volume of crap submitted. The trophy winners from the National Wine Show are rightly considerd to be of a very high standard indeed (but still carrying the weaknesses of the wine show system on their shoulders). The other example is the Sydney International Wine Show, the only wine show in Australia where wines are judged with food. Entrant numbers are capped and the judging panel is international in flavour, leading to results that are often quite different in nature to the traditional wine shows - the winners are often much more subtle and skewed towards boutique producers & arguably more interesting wines.

In the end, all show medals, especaily when served in singular doses from capital city wine shows, should be viewed as an indication of a good wine, but not a great one. To find the greatest drinks, look for consistency - a wine that gets rave reviews, show medals and ultimately, most importantly tastes the best to you!
Andrew Graham