The Decanter World Wine Awards say they are “world’s largest and most influential wine competition, with unrivaled global reach. Judged by top wine experts from around the globe, DWWA is trusted internationally for its rigorous judging process.”
Who are these top wine experts and how is it possible that the same wine, the 2016 Sodupe Rioja Crianza got a score of 84 at the 2019 competition and a score of 97 a the 2020 competition?
I reached this because a retailer was touting the 97 score but WSP still shows the 86 score and that made me curious. But, it turns out, they’re both right.
Does anyone know anything about DWWA apart from not to take them seriously?
if i recall correctly, the DWWA awards medals based on position in the group being tasted. i think platinum medal is said to be equivalent to a 97 point score, which is obviously something set up with the retailer in mind. i suppose it’s possible this wine was submitted twice and faced much stiffer competition the year before? in any event, i think the DWWA exists outside the world of regular wine criticism as a sort of publicity/marketing cattle call.
There have been discussions in the past on Wine Pages forum. Worth a search there, as it also included some people who volunteer for judging.
Like so many, this is not about being the ‘best wines’ (despite marketing spiel), but rather it’s based on who is prepared to pay to ship the samples to Decanter.
I don’t recall details of whether they have to pay to enter as well and I recall there also is some messaging to medal winners, inviting them to pay to advertise (but to be clear - not pay to win as such, more an invite to pay and market the award once you’ve won).
I believe they invite volunteer tasters to fill out taster numbers, with someone with some experience leading each little team and some higher profile names judging again those that get past their initial panel.
It’s all been a long time since I looked at those threads though, and I’ve learnt such awards are useful to shift to those punters not yet confident about wine and their own palates.
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