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Judging 1,335 Different Wines In Only 4.5 Days At ‘The National Wine Awards’

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by Treve Ring | 1,335 wines, 4,000 bottles, 4.5 days, 16-ish judges, 2 bottles of emergency couriered Nardini, 6 judges cannonballing into a pool at a hosted event, 2 types of Sensodyne toothpaste, 1 looping blur of guitar-led singalong on a bus, 1 unconfirmed sighting of Ogopogo…

By the numbers, that pretty well sums up last week in Penticton and my annual jaunt to judge The National Wine Awards of Canada. Of course, that doesn’t include the pre-figures (countless hours by the BOH team to organize, input, ship and unpack bottles, or the thousands of Aeroplan points redeemed to move judges from one side of the country to the other), or the post-figures (1 trip to the dentist for me this week). Math was never my strong suit – but wine, on the other hand…

Non-industry and non-wine people (I call them laypeople, or “civilians”) look at my career as a wine writer and judge it as either a dream job or a lark. I get a lot of “I like wine. I write good. I like to travel. That’s not work. I can do that!” While I’m thinking “Not enough. Not well. Not for long. Like hell it’s not. Highly doubtful”, I just smile and nod and feign concurrence.

I get that my work is different than most folks. The fact that my kitchen pantry has had all food replaced by wine bottles with little tags on their necks indicating drinking windows and soil types might be curious. And blind tasting hundreds of wines during the work week before going out in the evening to taste dozens more with winemakers might sound bizarre, but it’s as ideal as gamay on granite to me (really freaking ideal).

Wine judging has a veiled mystery to it – even amongst wine professionals. “I work with wine, I want to wear a badge and be a judge.” That’s like saying “I like to eat, I can wear whites and be a chef.” Not everyone who works in wine makes for a good wine judge. Being a sommelier, buyer, instructor, winemaker, collector or enthusiastic layperson does not make you a good wine judge. Years of dedicated tasting, evaluating, listening, travelling and learning from folks way smarter than you will get you started – plus you need a strong bent for detail, stamina, focus, humility, critical thinking and confidence to treat the wines and process respectfully and judiciously. And shit – when all is said and done and poured, you have to be able to taste.

I’m still learning, thank Bacchus.

And the lark bit? Well, I work every day, and think about wine, write about wine, and taste wine 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year, without the security of a pension or benefits or car allowance or whatever else civilians get, and have zero complaints – so yes, I guess so. Dream job? Damn straight! What follows, then, is a hand-scribbled look inside my week as a wine judge at The Nationals, flight by flight by flight…

DAY 1

Flight 1. Gamay. | GoGamayGo! Auspicious start to the competition, Fresh, bright and graceful. Stop overoaking these alluring beauts. Happy.

Flight 2. Red Blends | How do you make a wine taste like Worcestershire sauce? Lay off on heavy-handed oak, please. *First spill of competition.

Flight 3. Chardonnay | Eye twitch from too much residual sugar – it’s a tick tip off. One vibrant beauty (J), one with smoked ketchup chips and decaying flower blossoms (L).

Flight 4. Red Blends | I sense a pattern to the flights. Not really up on my grape knowledge of Frontenac, Marquette, Lemberger.

Flight 5 Chardonnay | Better integration of oak, and better quality wood in this flight. Nice creamy, powerful group. Redeemed.

Flight 6. Red Blends | First tannin buildup of the day, courtesy of gallons of merlot for the sake of merlot rather than the soul of merlot.

Lunch | 30 minutes. Plastic bread, brown soup, grey meat. No vegetables at this hotel?

Flight 7. Chardonnay | Was it Van Morrison from 1974 on the headphones that made some of these wines so vibrant and complex? Stars on my judging sheet. One of my panel mates wonders aloud “if they put some of the same wines in different glasses just to mess with us” and my heart skips a few beats.

Flight 8. Red Blends | Light and juicy, though balance doesn’t seem to be a goal for many of these wines. “Faux perfume from glade plug-in” and “chimney smoke vortex of darkness” and “foxy, green, buggy”.

Flight 9. Pinot Gris | I welcome anything but Chardonnay and Red Blends at this point, though most in the flight were innocuous and banal. Scores range from 84 (faux soap and candy necklace dust) to 88.5 (flint, struck stone, herbal, juicy).

Flight 10. Late Harvest | Shocking pain in my teeth due to the sugar after a day of acid and tannin. After my pain sensors have fried out, I find a stunning sauvignon blanc late harvest, closing out the day with my first 90+ wine.

Evening | Celebrating the summer solstice at Sandy Beach Lodge on Naramata Bench, playing croquet and eating my weight in tacos. No beer in sight, but dozens of wines and winemakers from the Naramata Bench Wineries Association. Terravista Viognier and Laughing Stock Amphora VRM steal my attention and admiration. Back to the hotel by 10pm and up to my room to work. Lights out at midnight.

DAY 2

Flight 1. Pinot Noir | Light, elegant, fresh – off to a fantastic start. Hopeful.

Flight 2. Sauvignon Blanc | Hopes dashed. All over the map, but the map is all badlands. One in the flight is relatively promising, and then a whole bunch of ???? !!!! on my sheet.

Flight 3. Pinot Noir | Less stellar flight. One “weedy swamp that has been dried out” note.

Flight 4. White Blends Aromatic | This is quite an open category, but you can count on viognier, ehrenfelser, bacchus, gewürztraminer to make appearances often. My first taste of vandal blanc, frontenac gris. One wine marked “strangest wine ever tasted in competition”.

Flight 5. Pinot Noir | 3rd time lucky? One lovely juicy & grippy wine. I call BC.

Flight 6. Merlot | Had a slight shudder due to my last merlot-dominant flight. Wines deemed “hard & charmless” by one of my panel mates. The degree of smoke and campfire is somewhat alarming. Bonobo in my headphones helps mellow my mood.

Flight 7. Fruit Wines | Always a reset to swing over to fruit wines. Some charming and pure-fruited wines, though one note reads “cough syrup, mustard seed, pooey, earthy, very sweet and syrupy. Why??”

Lunch | No vegetables. Some grey matter in crusty buns and a brown soup. Today we have cookies (yea!) but they’re raw (boo).

Flight 8. White Blend Aromatics | A rainbow hue of colours, from clear to deep gold. Wanting more acidity and zip in most.

Flight 9. Pinot Blanc | Keep away from the charred barrels and WE will all be much better off.

Flight 10. Riesling Icewine | Tears. So. Painful. We’re talking 250 g/L of sugar in each glass, and after 2 days of having acid etch the enamel off your teeth, this is not the easiest flight. However, after a while your palate becomes numb, the sugar reaches the bloodstream and you achieve a state of euphoria. One stunning 90+ point Riesling icewine to close out the day. Hurrah!

Evening | We pile on a bus and head to the rocky Similkameen, for a fresh crepe and salad (VEGGIES) feast underground in the caves at Seven Stones, joined by all the wineries of the Similkameen Wineries Association. No beer. But loving the Orofino 2007 Riesling they brought out of retirement for us to try. Back to the hotel around 11pm, followed by gin & soda on the patio overlooking the lake. To room by midnight, work until 1am.

DAY 3

Flight 1. Cabernet Franc | Here we go – a great flight. Bright, elegant, let the grape be what it should be naturally. Promising.

Flight 2. Gewurztraminer | Much meh. Baby barf, dilute, bruised flowers.

Flight 3. Rosé | All colours of the rainbow and grapes in the kingdom seen here – all over the place, but best examples are dry or nearly so, with pure fruit and fresh acidity. Two pinot noir rosé stunners get many stars on the sheet.

Flight 4. Riesling | Traditionally a very strong flight at The Nationals, but my high expectations result in a lacking flight (even though there is a 90+ for a particularly concentrated, limey and mineral-driven example).

Flight 5. Syrah | Bring it. Another flight I look forward to. Some beauts, a few beasts, but I’ll take them all.

Flight 6. Riesling | 4 wines in the 90’s. BAM.

Lunch | I have given up on the hotel lunch today. Eat a protein bar from home and drink hotel coffee.

Flight 7. Sparkling | Styles range from fizzy and frivolous to serious sparklers – and most all the wines fare well, save for the baked apple, oxidized, ketchup chips, salted hickory almonds example. Bill Withers in my headphones to sate my soul.

Flight 8. Cabernet Franc | Fantastic flight. Many stars – lovely earthy bramble and spice.

Flight 9. White Single Varietal Aromatic | No blends here, the opportunity for kerner, bacchus, ortega, viognier, siegerrebe to shine in their solos. Two stellar chenin blancs “more like this please!!” and a large contingent of meh.

Flight 10. Cabernet Franc | Riding high – savoury, graphite, cassis, branble, cherry, tobacco leaf, herbal, floral, structured. Impressive flight

Flight 11. Riesling | The first DNPIM (Do Not Put In Mouth) of the competition, does not lessen the glow of some stellar 90+ wines – taut, perfumed, focused, bright, herbal, concentrated and mineral repeated across the page.

Evening | Welcomed to Blasted Church Winery by the Okanagan Falls Wineries Association. Though the sky was streaked and threatening, the air was warm and heavy. BEER! Thank you Cannery Brewing! We nibbled on cheese and fruit and small plates while chatting and tasting with OK Falls members. Someone mentioned a cannonball contest, and judges started leaping into the pool (we were briefed to bring suits beforehand). I was happy to stay on dry land, enamored with Synchromesh Botrytis Affected Riesling and Stag’s Hollow Dolcetto – two delicious, needle-pushing wines and styles to champion. Back to the hotel around 10:30pm, and up to my room to work. In bed by 1am.

DAY 4 | SEMIFINALS

350 high scoring wines returning, and we start judging them all over again with a blank slate…

Flight 1. Pinot Gris | Rewarding to see we’ve culled correctly = a great flight of balanced and flavourful gris (a rarity).

Flight 2. Red Blends | Happy to finally be into the semis, where an 11 wine Red Blend flight is actually fun. Highest scoring wine to a savoury and structured syrah/cab sauv/cab franc blend. More stars.

Flight 3. Chardonnay | A total stunner. 93 points for a mineral, herbal, smoked stony, rich and confident wine with exceptional length and welcome, intriguing VA character. Wines needn’t have perfection to be perfect.

Flight 4. Merlot | A relatively sad flight. So many stemmy, dried out examples. Why are we planting so much merlot Canada?

Flight 5. Riesling | High hopes answered with an awesome flight. 89.5 and upwards. Plant more riesling Canada!

Flight 6. Vidal Icewine | Not sure why we have a separate category for vidal icewine vs. riesling icewine. At first sniff, my teeth scream. Onwards and inwards, finding a beautiful, unctuous, oak-influenced example.

Lunch | After a judge-led protest and claims of scurvy to the hotel’s catering department, lunch today is build your own burgers (with lettuce, and tomato!), a giant mixing bowl full of mustard (one of the least appetizing things to look at after a flight of vidal icewine) and raw cookies. Whatever – sold!

Flight 7. White Blends | Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings in my headphones. Pumped for a promising flight including schonburger, roussanne, marsanne, viognier, albarino, melon de Bourgogne, Semillon and more. YES.

Flight 8 & Flight 9. Pinot Noir | We decide to taste two pinot flights back to back. Disappointed by too much clumsy and heavy wood use, but best examples are “aromatic floral, raspberry, black cherry, fine grained spice and silky, endless finish”

Flight 10. Riesling | A shimmery wine with eraser, lime peel, blossom, herbal notes gets stars for ‘extreme intensity and vibrance’. J noted. Best way to finish off semis.

Evening | Our last night together, and we always look forward to a big farewell celebration hosted by the BC Wine Institute. This year we had an alfresco long table dinner at Painted Rock Winery, overlooking Skaha Lake, and catered by the peerless Joy Road Catering team. 40 wineries from across the Okanagan and Similkameen joined us, bringing current releases and special wines. Live music, sunset, delicious local food and wine. And beer! Back to the hotel around 11pm, and the group commandeers an empty meeting room in conference wing of the hotel to chill out with an emergency delivery of Nardini Rosso & Bitter, salty chips, international bottles that judges have brought to share and multi-lingual singalongs. I head up to bed around 1:30am, though hear strains of guitar and faint yodeling from the pier up until 3am.

DAY 5. FINALS

We’re up early and jazzed to taste through the best of the best. Approximately 50 wines are brought back for final evaluation, all with gold or high silver rankings at this point. We’re tasting the best of the best today, and though the following 4 hours are intense (92 vs 93 vs 94 points is important here), the tastings are a joy. I am assigned flights of Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Syrah, Rosé, Red Blends, Sparkling, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay. When the last flight is spent and spit, judges begin their goodbuys, and flights out begin almost immediately. We receive our coveted binders of notes and answer keys and begin pouring through each wine, decoding our notes and making shopping lists of our personal favourites. Over a cold beer, natch.

I have no idea which wines were the top scoring, which few (around 1%) gained platinum status or who was tallied to be the coveted Winery of the Year. I do know that every year I judge The Nationals the quality leaps forward, the wines become more confident and their stories clearer. The results will be released on WineAlign in the coming weeks, and every wine entered will be written up by at least one of the judges.

And there you have it — a week in the life of a wine judge. And now, I’m off to the dentist…

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