{"id":5795,"date":"2012-10-11T05:25:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-11T05:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=5795"},"modified":"2012-10-11T05:25:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T05:25:00","slug":"judging-at-the-royal-melbourne-wine-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/judging-at-the-royal-melbourne-wine-show","title":{"rendered":"Judging at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This week I am one of the two overseas judges at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. It\u2019s my first experience of an Australian wine show, and so far it has all been positive.<\/p>\n

I admit I was a little apprehensive before I got here. My image of Australian wine shows was informed by what I\u2019d read. I\u2019d heard that they were dominated by old, senior winemakers dressed in labcoats, working their way through hundreds of wines at ferocious speed, dogmatically leading their panels \u2013 conform or be cast out. I saw myself getting into an awful lot of trouble.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad to report that the RMWS of 2012 is completely different. Under the enlightened leadership of David Bicknell, there are no lab coats, and no one behaves dogmatically. There\u2019s a great team of some 40 tasters, including not only winemakers but also journalists and merchants. It\u2019s really friendly, and the standard of judging is very high.<\/p>\n

The Aussies are red hot on faults, but wines with personality and slight quirks are being given a fair crack. It\u2019s hard work, but there\u2019s no rushing. There\u2019s plenty of time to taste, with breaks, and our palates are not being worked to the point that they begin to perform erratically.<\/p>\n

The wines have been pretty good, with some real stand outs. Some classes have been particularly strong: the 2010 Shiraz flight I judged today had some brilliant wines in it. Australian wine style seem to be shifting away from over-ripeness and a reliance on oak, which is a good thing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Tim White tries to avoid being biased by the colour of the natural wines at the masterclass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aside from the judging, we have had two masterclasses. James Suckling (who, it turns out, is very friendly and good fun) gave one on Brunello, and I gave one on natural wine. And then there are the dinners. Last night\u2019s theme was old Aussie wines (these were incredible), and tonight\u2019s is old European wines. I\u2019m not getting all that much sleep, but that\u2019s what the plane journey home is for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week I am one of the two overseas judges at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. It\u2019s my first experience of an Australian wine show, and so far it has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5809,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5795\/revisions\/5809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}