The taste police

This was a typical day at the world's largest wine competition, The International Wine Challenge, when over 10,000 wines from around the world are submitted for blind tasting by several panels of judges. Over two weeks, the judges swirl, sniff and spit their way through the wines, noting their particular characters, good or bad, and assigning a mark to all and eventually a medal to the best.

I have been judging at the Challenge for many years, and have worked my way up to being one of the 20 panel chairmen, responsible for steering a group of fellow tasters through around 120 wines a day, making sure that every wine is fairly assessed for its quality, potential and typicity.

I also like to make sure that everyone has the chance to voice their opinion as the panel arrives at the correct decision for each wine. This year, I was joined for one day by Yorkshire Post reader, Kim Thompson, a bank worker from Leeds who won a place on my team in a competition organised through these pages. After first submitting a wine tasting CV, she successfully tasted her way through a line up of wines in a blind tasting at York's Hotel du Vin, beating four other readers to the coveted place.

"It was quite a scary experience, but I was very excited to be selected," said Kim as we settled down for a full day's tasting with three other tasters, including a Master of Wine. The first flight was pink Loire sparklers, no real problems here, apart from a severe lack of fruit in one of the wines. Then on to some French Syrahs; a flight of Argentinian Chardonnays followed by Turkish Cabernets and some Czech aromatic whites made from strange-sounding grape varieties.

This was Week One of the Challenge when the main job is to sort those wines worthy of medals from the ones which are clearly not.

But the decision to put a wine forward or reject it does not rest solely on my panel. Every wine which we decide is not good enough for a medal, including those rejected for faults is re-tasted, blind, by one of the six chairmen of the competition. These chairmen, who include three Masters of Wine and some of the world's best palates, have the ultimate casting vote on any wine. It means that every wine is tasted at least twice before a decision is made.

Any wine which goes through to week two of the Challenge is assessed once again by a panel, and then by a chairman just to make sure that the correct medal is allocated to each wine. If there is the chance of the ultimate accolade for a wine – a Trophy – then it goes through the whole process yet again. A wine may be tasted up to six times before the final decision is made.

So, as an amateur wine-taster in a room-full of professional tasters, did Kim enjoy the experience? "It was much harder than I expected," she said, "because you have to keep focused on the wines, and the whole process is quite fast, and very intense, but I have had a terrific day."

Kim also got to spend an hour with the Chairmen, learning how they assess the wines once they have been to the panels, and how faults are evaluated by Master of Wine Sam Harrop, who has a particular interest in the incidence and type of wine fault. Kim also spent time with TV wine expert Oz Clarke learning how to assess and describe wine.

There are many wine competitions, both in the UK and overseas, but there is nothing quite like the Challenge. The sheer number of wines, the number of tasters and their level of knowledge as well as the way the whole event is organised, in my opinion, makes

the International Wine Challenge the most professional wine competition in the world.

The results of the International Wine Challenge will not be fully released until September, but when they are, you can be sure that each medal-winning wine – Gold, Silver, Bronze or a simple Commended was has been fairly assessed several times before the award was made.

But what is the point of it all? The simple fact is that medals sell wines. If a wine has a medal then it flies off the shelves because consumers can be sure that the wine is good quality. But there is much more than that. By clearly marking out wines which taste better than others, wine companies can be encouraged to upgrade their winemaking and improve quality.

It also helps retailers since the ones which already list some of the best wines are clearly doing a great job for their local community.

It is for this reason that some of our retailers such as Harrogate Fine Wine, The Halifax Wine Company, Terroir Languedoc and Lewis and Cooper are now gaining national recognition.

Last year's International Wine Challenge results are still available on the website (www.international winechallenge.com) and from there you can follow this year's competition on Twitter and link through to YouTube where you can see Kim being interviewed during her day at the Challenge.

Meanwhile if you want to taste some of the best wines from 2009, check out the deep chocolate rich flavours of Gold medal winner Tokara Red 2005 from South Africa (24.99 Harrogate Fine Wine) or the cherry and spice flavours of Esperao's Alicante Bouchet which won a Silver medal last year (11.95 The Halifax Wine Co.)

Alternatively you could wait until next year when I might be looking for another reader to join me at the 2011 International Wine Challenge. Watch this space.

YP MAG 24/4/10