Every year a small army of expert tasters descends on London and sniffs, sips and spits its way through thousands of bottles of wine. They are there for the International Wine Challenge, now in its 30th year.
No wine competition is ever going to be perfect in every respect, but the IWC does a very creditable job. Every wine is tasted by at least 10 judges, the quality of the tasters (full list at www.internationalwinechallenge.com/judges.html) is unimpeachable, and all tasting is done blind.
In this year’s results, announced in mid-May, supermarket own-label wines made a strong showing: 30 gold medals, 13 of which sell at less than £10 (though that figure includes half bottles). Fortified wines feature prominently (nine golds) and so does champagne (six).
The most striking feature of the supermarket list is the dominance of Marks and Spencer, with 13 gold medals. This doesn’t surprise me, as regular readers of this column know that I’m a big fan of the M&S wine list. But it’s still a very impressive result.
