Several of our members organize “wine tournaments” in various forms. Here we give details of the particularly remarkable practice of our fellow members of the Slovenian Consulate of the OEVE.
We invite our members who have similar practices to share them with us.
Presentation
To determine and honor the best wines of a given appellation or type, the Slovenian Consulate of the OEVE has set up “wine tournaments”.
This year’s 27th tournament pitted 25 Sauvignon Blanc varietal wines against each other.
The competing wines were divided into 5 groups of up to 5, with each group being judged by a jury (typically made up of 7 judges).
Wines are served blind, in order of increasing residual sugar content.
Participants (up to 70) are also invited, each on their own behalf, to taste the same wines under the same conditions, and choose their favorite.
Organisation
5 sommeliers (1 per wine in each round) are responsible for serving the jury, then the participants. To avoid confusion, glasses are marked with a letter (A,B,C,D,E).
For each group of wines, each member of the jury ranks the wines tasted in order of preference, from 1 to 5.
A wine’s score is then obtained by summation, the best being the one with the lowest sum of ranks (Kramer’s method). (Méthode de Kramer).
In the event of a tie, the wine ranked last least often (]. Penultimate, etc.) is selected.
Each new round is announced with fanfare.
The 5 winners of this first round then compete in a second round using the same procedure.
Les meilleurs de ce 2ème tour sont alors primés.
The whole procedure takes around 2 hours, and of course the tournament is followed by agape !
See the tournament rules here
We note the originality of the selection process, in which each juror decides individually, the more common practice being to reach a consensus within the jury, which is generally smaller (typically 3 or 4 people).
Un autre exemple est celui du tournoi organisé by the Brothrhood of the Croatin Wine Knights (see our recent article here).
In any case, we invite our Brotherhoods to think about the widespread use of this type of event, and will be taking an initiative in this area in the near future.
