Vinitaly - bit of a shock result

A straight copy from Starforum (an Oz wine forum). I presume ok Robin, but happier for you to edit in the official press release instead if you have access to it. Whilst you're at it, what was your view on the Wyndham Bin555 Shiraz? It's a wine I've drunk 3-4 times before and whilst well-made used to have a good dollop of sweetness. I must say this Gold medal surprised me. I can't comment on the winner as I've yet to try it.

PRESS RELEASE: A Southern Hemisphere first!

Wyndham Estate awarded the Grand Vinitaly Award

Leading Australian wine producer Wyndham Estate has been awarded the prestigious Grand Vinitaly Award at the 2007 Vinitaly International Wine Competition- the first time ever a wine producer from the Southern Hemisphere has taken home the coveted international prize.

The Vinitaly International Wine Competition was held in Verona, Italy from 21–25 March 2007 and is regarded as the largest and most selective international wine competition in the world with more than 3,500 entries from 30 countries.

The Grand Vinitaly Award is assigned to the winery totaling the highest score for two wines taking medals in different groups. The Wyndham Estate BIN 555 Shiraz 2004 and the Wyndham Estate Show Reserve Cabernet Merlot 2001 both received Grand Gold Medals (the highest accolade) in their respective groups.

Only 105 medals were awarded confirming the traditional selectivity of the event.

Pernod Ricard Pacific Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Laurent Lacassagne, said the trophy was due regard for one of the most iconic wine names in Australian history.

“George Wyndham is widely recognised as the father of Australian Shiraz. The Wyndham Estate wines have always maintained a reputation for providing great quality and value. This is a tribute to all of our winemakers who have been dedicated to making top quality wines year after year.”

“This is a very exciting time for Wyndham Estate with the launch of the new super-premium George Wyndham wines in Australia and New Zealand - this award will for sure encourage all wine lovers to re-visit the terrific wines of Wyndham Estate,” said Lacassagne.

The judging involved 21 juries including leading oenologists and senior journalists from across the globe. Wyndham Estate now joins the Vinitaly Roll of Honour, which includes an impressive line up of previous winners such as Ernest & Julio Gallo from America, Segura Viudas di Torrelavit from Spain and four time winner Banfi di Montalcino from Italy.

It's a press release so not copyrighted to the other forum. Now if one of their posters had rewritten it, it would be copyright, but press releases are released in the hope that the word will be spead as far and as wide as possible.
That Bin 555 Shiraz 2004 has been trail blazing with its performance. It won a gold medal and a trophy at a show here in New Zealand as well - Best Commercial Red Wine, I think.

Best Commercial Red Wine, I think.

Sue doesn't that say a book full. It seems to to me. I wonder just what it means in regard to the competition. I suspect it means wines that are made in lots of a million gallon or more. But then of course I am pretty cynical.

This wine is average juice in my opinion. Its a big seller on the Grill winelist, has instant name recognition and is well priced by the glass and the bottle. I stopped paying attention to most of these wine shows quite a while back.

Hi Bob,
Even after saying what I did in response to Sue, I must still point out that the bin 555 is a better selection than the Gallo Hotel & Restaurant focus wines. It is also better than the many box wines sold in restaurants for what must be 500% markup over retail. So, if your place is selling the 555 as a house wine you aren't doing too bad, unless you are getting $7 per 5 ounce pour.

[Robin Garr]

what was your view on the Wyndham Bin555 Shiraz? It's a wine I've drunk 3-4 times before and whilst well-made used to have a good dollop of sweetness. I must say this Gold medal surprised me. I can't comment on the winner as I've yet to try it.

Ian, as you know, I was one of the 105 judges - more specifically, one of 30 journalist-judges from about 27 countries. (I think Canada got two, one Anglophone and one Francophone, and China got two, maybe one from Hong Kong and one from the mainland.) The rest of the judges were mostly oenologists working at wineries or universities, and a smaller number of sommeliers; a lot of them were Italian and just about all of them were European, in contrast with the journalists who literally came from all over the world.

Unfortunately, all wines were tasted blind, and we got no decoder ring at the end. Moreover, although the finalists were retasted by other panels in the final round of judging, no award-winning wine was tasted by all panels. So, in short, I have no idea whether I tasted the Bin555 or what I thought of it. In general, as I reported in a <I>Wine Advisor</I> article from Verona, it was interesting to be reminded that, even in international competition, not all wines submitted were uniformly great. We were required to use rather complicated score sheets that would yield results (barring technical flaws) in the range of 60 to 100 points, and I found that my ratings tended to fall on a bell curve with its peak in the 80s, a fair number in the 70s, and very, very few in the 90s.

Anyway, the judges spent a lot of time in each other's company - we stayed in the same hotel, took all our meals together, socialized together and, after the judging, toured Northern Italian wine regions in four smaller groups, so I got to know a lot of them well, and was intrigued and impressed by the overall competence of the group. There were no bozos on the bus.

Anyway, to make a long story short, to earn high ratings from one panel and to maintain that rating when vetted by a follow-up panel, I'd assert that a wine had to be <i>good</I>. But it's a known (and troubling) phenomenon in heavy-duty wine competitions like this that the hedonistic gobs of fruit wines tend to stand out when judges are racing through large numbers of wines in a hurry. I personally try to guard against this, and it's relatively easy for me because I don't much <i>like</i> hedonistic gobs of fruit. But for all I know, my rational judgments might have been thrown out a lot, because - in a standard statistical procedure - the tally throws out the highest and lowest score from each five-person panel and uses only the middle three. So, bottom line, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Wyndham 555 is a fruit-forward crowd pleaser <i>and</i> technically well-made. The big boys tend to stand out in judging; and the oenologist-heavy panels tend to reward correct wine making and punish flaws.

Ta for this Robin - a shame that you don't get to see the names on the labels and match that to your notes / scores.

If anything my surprise was not it doing well at a wine show (I'm sure they've done well in Oz and UK before). More was that it appealed to Italian palates.

It's a difficult one, whether to despair of wine shows where the bully boy wines win through, or to laud the beauty of blind-tasting removing our prejudices and revealing what we actually like. I buy into the former argument, but I'm sure there's some truth in the latter as well.

regards

Ian

[Robin Garr]

If anything my surprise was not it doing well at a wine show (I'm sure they've done well in Oz and UK before). More was that it appealed to Italian palates.

It's a dilemma all right, Ian, and for what it's worth, I've seen similar effects at the Sydney International ... somewhat ameliorated by SIWC's happy practice of re-judging the finalists with food, but still, wines have to survive mass blind tastings to get there.

I'm not so sure about the "Italian palate" in today's world, however. Again, note that close to 30 countries around the world were represented on the judging panel, and even if Italians were heavily represented among the enologist and sommelier judges, I doubt that Italy represented half of the panels. Well, wait, let's see, I've got a list here ... 42 of the judges were Italian. Moreover, if they consistently voted against the consensus, they would have been disproportionately eliminated in the process of kicking out the high and low scores.

Now I think about it, my own palate may be as "Italian" as some of the Italian judges based on my strong Franco-Italian preferences, although I certainly try hard to be open to all styles of wine and to judge them fairly.