© by Nigel Lelew Hi Ellie ... it's that time again ... time to sit back and talk about wine. And rather than take you to some exotic location, I thought we'd hop along to Londons Docklands. Maybe a strange location to talk about wine ... but nevertheless lets go and find out what Docklands has to contribute to the wine world. This years Challenge! OK ... so what has Docklands to offer the wine world. Well, London hosts the biggest wine competition in the world every year ... the International WINE Challenge and it was held in Docklands this year, as it was last year. So whats a wine competition all about and why is it important. Well ... a wine competition is about a bunch of people in the wine trade getting together, tasting each of the wines and giving wines worthy of it ... an award. Simple! Not quite so simple when theres over eight and a half thousand different wines to taste though ... sounds like a nightmare of organisation ... but get organised it does ... by WINE magazine ... and at the end of the two weeks ... that’s how long it takes to taste and retaste all those wines ... the awards are decided. The great thing about the Challenge is that each wine is judged on its merit. The tasters don't know what the wine is that they're tasting ... they're all tasted blind ... and so wines from the big corporations with budgets others can only dream of, compete side by side with wines from the individual winemaker in somewhere like Argentina ... so reputation, money nor price is able to colour anyone's judgement. And that can sometimes throw up some quite remarkable things, which we'll see later. In the first week of the Challenge, panels of tasters decide whether each wine is worthy of an award or not. If it is, it gets through to the second round. So that really means sorting the wheat from the chaff. But its not the end of the road for those wines which don't make the cut. The wines thrown out are re-tasted just to make sure that nothing has been overlooked. Sometime in the second week of the Challenge the real business of awards starts. Those that just make the grade are given a 'Seal of Approval', with the medals rising from bronze, through silver to gold after that. And still the £2.99 bottle competes shoulder to shoulder with the £30 bottle and more - they are judged solely on quality and style. For those that want to boggle at statistics, this year, a total of 450 judges, including yours truly flying the Delta flag!, swirled, slurped and spat their way through over 8,500 wines from 34 countries. There were nearly 2,300 gained seals of approval, and 1,700 bronze medals awarded, with over 1050 silvers and 233 golds. Quite a feat in just two weeks! So what of the results I hear you say. Well, the surprising thing is that the cost of the award winning wines can vary greatly. Some, as you may expect are in the 20 and 30 pounds a bottle, but that’s the minority. Just flicking through the results heres one example. In the Bordeaux style category theres a French Margaux costing over £90 awarded a gold medal and then in the same category also with a gold medal, so again judged to be the best quality, is an Australian Cabernet Shiraz costing a fiver ... I rest my case ... there are great wines out there that won't break the bank And its these great value-for-money wines that I like to concentrate on ... so the message I want to get across this morning is that events like the International WINE Challenge really can make be for people who like to go and buy a good bottle of wine locally and know that they're getting a brilliant wine at an even better price…and Ellie and I are going to put a couple of them to the test in the tasting ... The Tasting So I've brought in a couple of wines. They are both Wines of the Year which means that they are either silver or gold award winners ... so they are quality wines ... and they have to offer great value for money.… so lets uncork the first, one of three White Wines of the Year. Banrock Station 1998 Chardonnay is a subtley oaked chardonnay from South eastern Australia. Colour Pour this one into the glass and you'll see the golden colour of this one ... Aroma OK give the wine a swirl ... a refreshing zesty citrus aroma ... again not huge oak in there ... .just fresh clean limes ... lets see take a slurp ...
Taste ... well the lemon/lime comes through ... ..it’s got that refreshing kind of taste to it that we got in the aroma ... and theres is some oak in there…but you have to look for it ... and that’s what I personally like ... is a terrific zesty mouthful which is enormously clean and fresh with just a hint of subtle oak ... Brilliant OK so let me tell you how much this Wine of the Year is ... .just £3.99 from Somerfield ... it’s one of only 233 gold medal winners from over 8,500 wines ... I think that’s a terrific achievement OK lets go for the reds ... One of the Red Wines of the Year comes from a little closer to home, Portugal. They really are a bit of a rising star within Europe and this wine is a great example of that ambition. 1998 Ramada from Estremadura ... which is sort of halfway up the western coast of Portugal ... so Colour This is a fairly light red in the glass which reflects the 11.5% alcohol content of this one Aroma Swirl the wine around again ... theres a wonderful soft smokey cedar aroma to this one ... lets see what the taste is like ... Taste It’s a soft fruit that builds in the mouth ... and amongst the raspberry fruit theres almost a tarry smoke flavour to the wine as well ... and the taste is long too ... I think that’s gorgeous! So that’s 1998 Ramada ... and like the white ... this is £3.99 from Somerfield. So I hope I've proved my point , that you don't have to mortgage the house to find great wines ... and wines that are available at your local supermarket too! Next Month Next month Ellie, I'm almost afraid to say it will nearly be time for Christmas and of course whats billed as the biggest party of our lifetime ... the millennium ... so I'll be looking at wines to fit the occasion!
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