Winning a gold doesn’t necessarily mean what it used to.
Think gold … think of the precious metal that is an age-old symbol of wealth and medals awarded for the highest achievement. So in New Zealand’s wine competitions over the past year, how many gold medals have been awarded?
Over 700. That doesn’t include the many golds given to New Zealand wines in overseas shows. Are gold medals in danger of losing their shine?
The avalanche of golds partly reflects the recent proliferation of shows. For decades New Zealand had just two wine competitions; now there are 11. The long-term players are the Royal Easter Show Wine Awards, organised since the early 1950s by the Auckland A&P Association; and the Air New Zealand Wine Awards, run by NZ Winegrowers. Until 20 years ago, they had the field to themselves.
Now there are also four regional competitions – the Hawke’s Bay A&P Mercedes-Benz Wine Awards; the Marlborough Wine Show; the Gisborne Regional Wine Awards; and the Upper North Island Wine Challenge. The Bragato Wine Awards celebrate single-vineyard wines, whereas the International Aromatic Wine Competition focuses on “aromatic” varieties, such as riesling.
Shows describing theirselves as “international”, such as the Spiegelau International Wine Competition, judged in Blenheim, and the New Zealand International Wine Show, run by Takapuna retailer Kingsley Wood, accept entries of imported wines. So do the New World Wine Awards, run by Foodstuffs for New World supermarkets and restricted to sub-$25 wines. Together, all these shows have kept the judges busy over the past year, assessing over 9000 samples.
A less obvious reason for the gold rush is that judges are awarding the coveted medal to more and more of the entries. In the past, 5% of the field won golds; today it is sometimes around 10%. The quality of New Zealand wines is rising faster than judging standards are being tightened.
Why do we have so many wine shows? The original idea was to lift quality standards and, later, to promote sales. Competitions can also turn a profit, since the judges and stewards are unpaid and the wineries pay entry fees.
The country’s most prestigious wineries – such as Ata Rangi, Cloudy Bay, Dry River, Felton Road, Kumeu River, Neudorf, Pegasus Bay, Te Mata – tend not to enter wine shows. Once you are on top, there is only one way to go, a cynic would suggest. But the competition environment, where judges (including me) taste up to 150 wines a day, is totally different to enjoying a glass or two with dinner. Fatigued palates respond well to a bold, “full-on” style, but the wine qualities you appreciate during a meal may be delicacy and finesse.
Rick Kinzbrunner, who produces one of Australia’s most lauded chardonnays, Giaconda, argued recently in Decanter that his country’s scores of wine shows are flawed. In the early years, he says, the system helped “drag the bottom level up”, but now it’s doing the opposite. “It’s holding people back. It just drives wines to a certain level of interesting boredom, clean boredom.”
Kinzbrunner’s comments are harsh, and some gold-medal winners are outstanding. But the shows’ results are hard to predict. An analysis by Auckland writer Sue Courtney, of wineoftheweek.com, found that, despite multiple show entries by many producers, this year only 15% of gold-medal winners have succeeded more than once.
The counter-argument is that some labels do reflect judging consistency. The standout example is Villa Maria Single Vineyard Keltern Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2010 ($38), this year the overall champion wine at three shows.
Looking for a bargain? Lindauer Brut and Lindauer Rosé won gold medals at this year’s Royal Easter Show Wine Awards, and Church Road Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 recently scooped a gold medal and the trophy for champion merlot-based blend at the Hawke’s Bay’s regional show.