Monday Mix—Wine Judging—The Purple Tongue Gang

Welcome back—hope you’ve had a great weekend. I’ve just made my way home after three mouth-staining days at the downtown Nikko Hotel. The occasion? North America’s largest wine judging: the San Francisco International Wine Competition. www.sfwinecomp.com This year, over 4,000 wines, from all over the world, were entered into the judging. Whew!

The fifty or so judges included representatives from a number of states outside California, as well as several from other countries. On Friday, I had the pleasure of sitting on a Pinot Noir panel with the highly affable Jim Harré of New Zealand (he operates a lodge on the South Island, www.thegateslodge.co.nz and also selects wine for Air New Zealand. You’ll hear his deep, rich basso voice on my upcoming podcast). I also enjoyed a lively and engaging conversation (you’ll hear that too) with Jim McMahon of Sydney, Australia, about his judging adventures in England, Japan, China and Singapore.

As I mentioned on Friday, I’ve been judging this particular competition for almost 20 years. It’s directed, with great panache, by “winemeister” Anthony Dias Blue (see previous post). The competition now has such a long history that all the glitches are (or at least, from a judge’s perspective, seem to be) thoroughly ironed out.

Since I do so many wine judgings each year, and since all of them vary somewhat in their focus, philosophy, and/or scope, I thought I’d give you a rundown of how this one works. In future posts, I’ll describe some of the other competitions and point out the differences.

We judges are divided into “panels” of from three to five members. My panel of four comprised retailer Jerry Cooper, who co-owns Swirl, a gorgeous new bottle shop/tasting bar in SF (That's Jerry and his purple tongue in the pic), www.swirloncastro.com Master Sommelier Kevin Vogt of Delmonico’s Steakhouse in Las Vegas (an Emeril Lagasse restaurant, where Kevin’s regular patrons routinely order $1,000-plus bottles of wine), www.emerils.com Wilfred Wong, Cellarmaster of Beverages and More www.bevmo.com and the most meticulous wine judge I’ve ever encountered, and moi. We work really well together (as you’ll hear), and we’ve become a rather notorious fixture at the SF International. I think of us as “The Purple Tongue Gang.”

Here’s how it all works. After schmoozing over breakfast (gotta line the tummy!) on Saturday, we headed toward the judging rooms. This year "The Gang" shared a room with Panels A, B and C (we were Panel D), with black curtains in between.

Our panel coordinator (Paul Bourbon, a twenty-five-year veteran of the competition) joined us, gave us our tasting list and a stack of scoresheets, and checked in with Wilfred, our panel leader, about what wines we’d taste when. (Wilfred: “OK, Paul—after these Chardonnays, let’s do the 40-odd Sauv Blancs, then move to the Cabernets and maybe we can get the Bordeaux-style blends done before lunch. Then we’ll pick up with the Zins. Sound good?”) Then Paul’s team wheeled in a specially designed cart with our first “flight” of wines, identified to us only by code letters (“A” through whatever, usually “M” or so).

For each flight, the volunteers arrange the wines in an arc in front of each judge. We ask whatever questions we need to (about, for example, the varietal blend, the vintage, the residual sugar). Then we go silent.

Each of us swirls, sniffs, tastes, and takes notes on each wine. (And we spit. That’s vital, as we’re evaluating 150+ wines per day.) Our notes need to be pretty comprehensive as to aroma, flavor descriptors, weight, balance, finish and general yumminess (or lack of it!) so that when we discuss the wines, each of us can defend our own opinion. Then, when everyone’s ready, Wilfred asks us each to read out our scores.

Let’s pick up from here tomorrow, when I’ll lead you through the next part of the process. That’s when we decide what kind of medal—bronze, silver, gold or none at all—to award each wine.

Until then,
Cheers,
Rosina
gilded fork, wine, wine writing, Welcome to Wine Country, Rosina Tinari Wilson