Can anyone elaborate on their wine competition experiences? Did you make a batch with the intent to compete? Or did you feel it was worthy after tasting?
palates may be individual but the criteria for tasting is not as subject to individual taste as one would think. analyzing a wine is a practiced skill, not an off the top of your head gut reaction. blackberry nose is different from black currant nose. astringency is different from bitterness. among professionals, there is no dispute here.
whether you like a wine or not may be your own personal taste, but in judging, there is much objective criteria to discuss and rate from a shared experience and a common vernacular and basis of understanding. the problem may be that some judges do not have the experience yet to truly take apart a wine component by component in a blind tasting and do so in such a way that is repeatable and agreeable by other judges to get the same analysis.
palates can tire and any judge that is just going down a line and taking sips and writing notes is not compartmentalizing each entry sufficiently to make a fair judgement.
and thats all just on smell and palate. judgements made on clarity, color intensity, hue, sweetness, astringency, acidity, bitterness, body, texture, balance and finish are even less variably open to interpretation. for the most part these are finite measures that while based on sensory perception, are still objective, quantifiable and would be universally agreed-upon among professionals of the appropriate experience and training.
this is the sort of thing you get into when you go into master of wine programs, cwe/csw certification, etc. your tasting notes from class tastings are graded by the instructors for your ability to correctly classify and analyze a wine... detecting medium bitterness when it is in fact sourness combined with astringency will mean the different between an A and a B-.
The new jersey state fair, for example, is judged by the members of the state fair comitee.
Can anyone elaborate on their wine competition experiences? Did you make a batch with the intent to compete? Or did you feel it was worthy after tasting?
Enter your email address to join: