Yes, another wine competition

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013

The natural wine movement has enjoyed a fair amount of heated debate in the media recently while wine competitions have always stirred debate. Who – other than label printers and PRs perhaps – isn’t tiring of the number of wine competitions? We must find room for one more though (if we can’t cull another), one for the grower, the farmer, the viticulturist.

The cult of the celebrity chef is shifting its focus to the farmer. Chefs are talking up origin, seasons and sustainability, and sourcing produce from the farmer down the road. Retailers are running campaigns celebrating the farmers who supply them. If not the grower, Europe has tended to celebrate the site or the notion of terroir, which often requires hundreds of years of trial and error, where wine is curated by a chef du cave rather than created by an oenologist.

Just as ordinary winemakers can make ordinary wine from good fruit, talented winemakers can make good wine out of ordinary fruit (or in lesser vintages) but they cannot make an exceptional wine from ordinary fruit. As they stand, competitions create the perception – certainly among consumers – that winemakers make the largest contribution to quality.

Increasing numbers of fine wine producers in the Old and New World are going organic, if not biodynamic, with some arguing that within the next 20 years most fine wine will be organic. Recently Fiona McDonald, chair judge at the Nedbank Green Wine Awards, noted how the wines could now compete in any competition.

Arriving at the ‘wine-tasting: it’s a junk science’ debate, we have had hard scientific evidence regarding the inadequacies of wine judging. Meanwhile the democratisation of wine criticism is taking the wind out of the competition’s sails (and sales?). Wine critics scores are losing influence to peer referral in social media, consumers can go to CellarTracker, the Purple Pages member’s forum or even bloggers for buying decisions.

If competitions are for consumers rather than producers, how does a competition for growers have appeal? Can it be sexy? Will it be sponsored by ‘Mr Farmer’ clothing and apparel? Like the ideal lover, some commentators argue natural wines don’t exist, (or won’t exist) but why not start with a competition for vin nature, for a good natural wine (SO2 permitted for starters) with all the minimum intervention it implies, surely an award for the grower? Maybe this could also help expose the vin nature poseurs?

And so what if natural wine doesn’t exist for some, there is no such thing as the perfect wine competition – and it’s sure to fire lively debate.

– Jonathan Snashall