Wine judging academy: Bring on the next generation
“Wine is dauntingly unruly,” wrote Terry Theise, author of Reading Between the Wines (Univeristy of California Press). “So many places it comes from, so many grapes it’s made from, so many different people making wine as they interpret how it should be made. And then its taste changes every damn year.”
In order to enable wine industry members to get a grasp on the often slippery world of wine appreciation, the Wine Judging Academy, now in its fifth year, was held on the weekend of 21 to 23 January. A rigorous course, the academy sees 20 delegates (with participation awarded on merit) sit through a number of tastings and accompanying lectures to teach participants the art of competition judging. Apart from fine-tuning palates to the intricacies of wine, one of the course’s main attributes – which causes some trepidation among students – is that it tests students’ stamina, with up to 150 wines tasted each day.
Michael Fridjhon, visiting professor at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business – which hosts the academy, together with Wine and Old Mutual – leading wine writer and convenor of the academy notes that “the business of wine assessment is not uncontroversial, and whether judgement is made to produce ratings, award medals or simply to describe a wine’s qualities, the exercise is fraught with difficulties”.
In order to enable students to navigate this minefield of qualitative judgement, students attending the course are exposed to a range of wines – local and international. Throughout the course, which attempts to refine participants’ ideas about wine quality, wines are tasted blind, as opposed to sighted; a preferred tasting model to avoid bias when analysing the aesthetics of wine.
Of course, the debate of sighted versus blind tasting rages on in the wine world, and to illustrate the sensitivity of the subject, in his introductory lecture, Fridjhon presented six wines, poured sighted, to the delegates. These were three South African examples (Bouchard Finlayson Sans Barrique Chardonnay, Groote Post Pinot Noir and Slaley Cabernet Sauvignon/ Merlot) versus three French examples (Louis Latour Chablis, Corton Pinot Noir and Château Bernadotte Bordeaux blend). Having rated the wines, delegates revealed their scores which were slanted in favour of the French examples. A flawed judgement it would show, as decanted into the six bottles was exactly the same set of South African wines!
The point was well-made. Wines should be judged on pure aesthetics alone and not on what the label promises.
Speakers this year, apart from Michael Fridjhon, included internationally trained sommelier Jörg Pfützner of Fine Wine Events, international wine consultant Peter McCombie (MW), Graham Beck cellarmaster Pieter Ferreira, De Grendel cellarmaster Charles Hopkins, Jordan cellarmaster and proprietor Gary Jordan and wine writer and Wine magazine panel chairman Christian Eedes.
Highlights of the course included flights showcasing some classic old wines which included a vertical tasting of Château Gruaud-Larose (’04, ’85, ’75 and ’66), Kanonkop Cabernet Sauvignon (’04, ’00, ’98, ’95 and ’91) as well as a flight of dessert wines which included a KWV Muscadel Jerepico 1953 and Rivesaltes Château Sisqueille Vin Doux Naturel 1940 – a wine that stunned the class with its amazing freshness and apparent youthfulness.
While the object of the course, producing competent wine judges, was by all means achieved with eight distinctions from the 20 participants, the core of the Wine Judging Academy still very much relies on the sheer enjoyment of wine – it is the foundation of wine after all!
An eloquent conclusion is made by Therry Theise: “Wine is, in fact, a lovely means of training ourselves to examine a question from all angles and resist precepts. What we can’t do is establish a single matrix whereby wines are either acceptable or unacceptable. If we do that, we stop not only thinking; we stop experiencing. And that would most certainly defeat the purpose of wine.”
