Double gold ho-hum

Yesterday I went to a local food/wine event, Chef’s Night Out. The focus was the food–they had some of the top chefs and restaurants serving small plates. The food was excellent, but the wine largely uninspired.

I believe the wines being poured were “Double Gold” winners from the SF International Wine Competition. They were all decent, to be sure, but for the most part they weren’t that interesting–a 2007 J. Lohr Syrah, a 2005 Heller Estate Meritage, 2007 Clos de Bois Reserve Chardonnay, etc. The only wine that really stood out as more interesting was the 2007 Malibu Cabernet Franc. The wines were so middle-of-the road (with small pours) that some of my friends went to the bar to buy wines by the glass instead.

So far, I find that most wine competition results don’t produce “winners” that align with my palate. At the very least, the competition doesn’t produce “wow” wines for me. Do you find any reliable wine competitions, where the top prizing-winning wines more uniformly match your tastes?

Bruce

Recently, on a trip to LI wineries, I had the displeasure of tasting a gold medal award winning Riesling… [bleh.gif]

Well, I judged at the New Wave Spanish Wine Awards in London last month, with some pretty competent tasters (much more so than myself: Tim Atkin, Robert Joseph and all manner of British MWs), and what we were looking for was simply the best stuff around. The best in show, Palo Cortado Antique from Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla, was a simply mindboggling sherry, so from that experience I can say that at least some competitions do highlight really exciting wines…