Gilbert & Gaillard fell for a prank

And that is the point. Magnums ARE better. There should be an insistence that bottles and magnums of the same wine be submitted were possible.

Roederer chose not to submit wines, perhaps you are right Po, maybe wanting to step back and allow others their time? Who knows!
 
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Alex Lake said:
So the list of who entered is kept quiet? I guess that makes commercial sense!
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I don't think there are any of the competitions where they list everything that was entered. Obviously your Lafites and DRCs are not going to submit wines to any competition, so and I dare say there will be some top fizz houses or cuvees that feel the same. I wonder how many producers or importers have ever boycotted a competition because they didn't like the results? With at least one majorish competition there's no danger of that right enough :)
 
Looking a little deeper into the awards.
Excepting the 2002 seems the Veuve wines garnering medals are from the Dominique Demarville period as Chef de Caves.
But it would be a brave person to buy a Mag of LGD on the back of this.
The big confirmation on the NV front is lack of any medal for Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve (mis en cave).
I don’t think there is much chance that was not entered (almost certainly en Mag) , rather no longer the reliable shoe in it has been for the last couple of decades:(
 
There are some indeed slightly weird wine in the list.
Moet vintage 1999... when was the last time you see that in the shop? Pommery cuvee Louise 2003 en magnum? I don't remember ever saw it at all.

This event used to be, at least mostly, for companies to send in their current release, which should be more useful for consumers as well as the wineries. Submitting magnum format is already setting a barrier for common consumers, but I can understand that if the brands want to obtain gold medals for certain wine, despite that certain wine might taste very different in bottles. What's the point to submit a wine that is basically gone from the market?
 
Po-yu Sung said:
There are some indeed slightly weird wine in the list.
Moet vintage 1999... when was the last time you see that in the shop? Pommery cuvee Louise 2003 en magnum? I don't remember ever saw it at all.

This event used to be, at least mostly, for companies to send in their current release, which should be more useful for consumers as well as the wineries. Submitting magnum format is already setting a barrier for common consumers, but I can understand that if the brands want to obtain gold medals for certain wine, despite that certain wine might taste very different in bottles. What's the point to submit a wine that is basically gone from the market?
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Grand Vintage late disgorged, and Pommery are indeed shipping 2003 magnums.
 
I know some people think some wine shows might be a bit corrupt. I have always tended to feel that some of the judges are just a bit incompetent. The scores and comments below for my 2019 Noble Riesling might be of interest to people. Quite a few of you will have tried the wine and it is the wine I took to the 06 Burg dinner at Noize last year. Tom scored it 95. It has 180 grams residual sugar. This is from a show judged in Australia back in 2021 where wines from 6 or 7 countries were selected as representatives of each country. Because covid was still lingering at the time four "highly qualified" Australians did the judging.

A faint plastic note on the nose and palate. Very sweet.
19​
87
Intense Honey, Botrytis apricot and mandarin. delicious palate with balanced sweetness and concentrated flavours.
19​
96
Deep gold. Opens with ripe melon, honey, apricot jam. Very very very sweet. Honeyed but cloying on the finish.
19​
86
Classic botrytis style with plentiful honey, lemon glacé fruits. lovely richness volume, sweetness and acidity, Top notch wine
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98

So scores of 98, 96, 87 and 86. Far too sweet for two of the judges at 180 grams of sugar. I would be fascinated to hear what two of the judges would think of a Trockenbeerenauslese. I would also be amazed to hear what their qualifications were to be judging the sweet wine class.
 
I think everyone on Wine Pages has moved beyond going on medals and knows that wine competitions are flawed, if not downright corrupt.

The interesting thing about this story is that it's the mainstream media making the public aware of that fact, not just chat in a hidden wine corner of the internet.

G&G are notorious for handing out medals simply to keep wineries entering, which makes it a shame that they picked them as their "prestigious" competition to shame but I reckon they could have done the same with numerous other competitions.

The efforts they went to with the back-story and creating a media buzz for the wine was quite elaborate and suggests that they think the competition organisers are influenced by that when deciding who to give gold medals to. This goes beyond the simple concept of pay-for-medals, flooding competitions with samples or judges' incompetence. It suggests that the producers willing to spend the most on advertising are going to reap more medals that those who don't.
 
Kevin Courtney said:
I know some people think some wine shows might be a bit corrupt. I have always tended to feel that some of the judges are just a bit incompetent.
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I sometimes have the same feeling, too. But who am I to judge judges :)

If I am trying to be charitable, when I read how some competition being done, those people had to taste hundreds of wine blind within two days, at best they had only 5 minutes to decide for one wine, not even considering palate fatigue.

In this sweet wine's case, it's obviously coming from personal preference. As a consumer, one has every right to like their wine to be under certain level of sugar, but if someone has accepted to judge some sweet wine, letting that kind of personal preference stepping in is indeed a bit unprofessional.

See, here we have the eternal debate topic; subjective or objective? Giving a wine a score is pretty much a subjective decision, but people do expect some sort of objectiveness.
 
Jonathan Hesford said:
The efforts they went to with the back-story and creating a media buzz for the wine was quite elaborate and suggests that they think the competition organisers are influenced by that when deciding who to give gold medals to. This goes beyond the simple concept of pay-for-medals, flooding competitions with samples or judges' incompetence. It suggests that the producers willing to spend the most on advertising are going to reap more medals that those who don't.
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That was indeed my point.
As well discussed above, even for *comparatively fair blind tasting competition, people can still play with rules; but at least we believe that some judges like the awarded wine, whether you agree with those judges or not. But in this G&G scandal's case, was there even a tasting happening? I think that's the line between an somewhat acceptable commercial practice and a total scam.
 
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