A testing time for wine tasters

Judge Geoff Merrill at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards. Photo / Supplied

Wine tasting might sound like a relaxing way to spend a day but for the judges of the annual Air New Zealand Wine Awards it's a serious business, with discussions over placings sometimes vigorously debated.

As I look on, the judging panel tasked with deciding this year's award-winning drop in a particular category sip, savour and spit into the buckets provided.

At stake are gold, silver and bronze medals, as well as the all important trophy, which denotes the wine judged best overall in its class.

Words like balance, spice and acidity are thrown around. I had been asked to leave my coffee at the door as even the merest whiff of anything non-wine related could skew the results.

"The [judging] system is pretty fair," says Australian winemaker Geoff Merrill, one of the international judges at this year's awards.

To begin with, every judge on the panel blind tastes each wine and gives it a score out of 20. Sixteen denotes a bronze, seventeen denotes a silver and wines scoring 18.5 or more are considered gold medal material.

The judges then compare their scores and gradually whittle down the field until only the very best examples remain. It's at this point that debate on the merits of each wine comes into play as there needs to be consensus on each wine's overall score.

"We'll taste five wines that've come back and there'll be two golds and a silver on one wine... well that's not going to be hard to get one person up to a gold, they might have missed something," says Merrill.

Sydney-based wine writer and fellow international judge Huon Hooke agrees.

"The reason we have three judges is that everybody misses a good wine occasionally. If you're tasting fifty, sixty wines at a time you can easily miss a wine and one of the others will pick it up - hopefully."

Although most consumers can identify which wines they like and dislike, they might not be able to pinpoint why.

In reality, it's likely an issue of balance - or lack thereof - says Hooke, and that's what the judges of wine awards are looking for.

"I guess the most important characteristic of all great wines is balance and balance basically means if you don't have an excess or a deficiency of any one thing."

The flavour and the intensity of a wine's aroma are also taken into account as well as its drinkability because "at the end of the day, that's what it's for," says Hooke.

He believes many people are guided by wine awards when trying a new drop because the choices can be so daunting.

"There is so much wine in the world that most people haven't the faintest idea how to keep track of it all. I'm a professional writer and I have trouble... so of course people are looking for guidance."

Wine awards are also a useful guide for those who make the mistake of stocking up after having a few glasses at a vineyard, he jokes.

"You all know the scenario, you've been to the winery, you've bought a boot full of wine and you get home and the next time you open a bottle you think 'God, why did I buy that? It's terrible', because maybe you were not in the right critical frame of mind when you were making the decision."

Sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir have been waving the flag for the New Zealand wine industry in recent years but both Hooke and Merrill say they are excited about other varietals too.

"Pinot gris is probably the other one that is growing quite strongly," says Hooke.

"Good pinot gris has a bit of spicy aroma - a bit like dried flowers or petals... The best of them are very good."

Merrill, meanwhile, says he was impressed by New Zealand shiraz while judging a competition in Wellington last year.

He also believes that wine shows, while a great guide for consumers, have a far more important role within the industry.

"I think every wine country in the world needs to evolve style... and that's the charter, in my opinion, of the wine shows.

"It's not the commercial result, it's not the ability for a wine company to say 'I won a trophy and a gold medal', it's the fact that the winemakers and the judges are at the cutting edge and are helping define style.

"Shows are great and I think, certainly in Australasia, they've helped us - New Zealand and Australia - get to where we are in the world of wine, the recognition that both countries deserve. They're great wine countries."