Paying to get a prize for your wine was the headline on a piece I wrote years ago for a rarely read blog I used to amuse myself with. In it I quoted with approval the wine writer for The Irish Times, John Wilson, who noted that “in some wine competitions the majority of (paying) entrants gets a prize.” The warning was that consumers approach those medals on wine bottles with caution.
The wisdom of that message came back to me when I looked at the Levantine Hill website while pondering the Australian wine madness where people are asked to pay $600 for a 2020 Optume Chardonnay. There I noted an item:
Being an inquisitive fellow I looked for further details of this “claiming Best in Show by Varietal at the highly respected 2022 London Wine Competition.” The best in show by varietal, I discovered, was in a class for pinots.
The competition was moderate. No gold medal winners from Australian shows made their way to London for this judging. There was a solitary Burgundy on the medal list.
The judges gave the Levantine Hill 92 points out of a hundred. The Brokenchack 2019 Hare Hunter Pinot was also awarded a gold for its 91 points. Saw & Saw, not a regular winner on the Australian show circuit, got a gold for its pinot as well.
A fair return for the £120 competition entry fee and the freight cost to London?
Certainly a nice little earner for the Beverage Trade Network which organises th event.
But not as lucrative as the World Wine Awards are each year to Decanter magazine. Last year those awards had 18,244 entries at £58 each. That’s $A1,955,585. And then there’s the add on from selling those stickers that adorn winning bottles – just a humble £49 per thousand.
