Victorian Wines Show 2007

Chairman of Judges’ Report

Before I comment on the wines, let’s get a few statistics out of the way. This year there was  43% of wines in the Open Classes awarded medals.  41 Gold, near enough 5%, 76 Silver, 9%, and 253 Bronze at 29%. This is a significantly better result than last year when 37% of the wines were awarded medals and importantly this year the percentage of gold and silver medals was higher.

I guess one could argue that perhaps this year’s judges were a little more generous, but I prefer to believe the wines were better particularly as well over half the judges were the same as for last year. I have no solid explanation as to why this year’s entries were 150 odd fewer than for last year, with the 2006 CHR P/N SHI and CAS classes being mainly responsible for the deficit, except to surmise that it may be due to wines from that hot very quick vintage just not being considered worthy of entry by their makers.

Needless to say as in past years the top wines are all excellent examples of their particular varieties or styles with the most consistent attributes being finesse, elegance and grace, characteristics which I believe are best expressed in cooler regions of which Victoria abounds of course and so it’s no surprise that a high percentage of the entries exhibited these characteristics.

On the negative side there were many entries which displayed the downside of cool climate viticulture where it was quite evident that the grapes just didn’t develop the required intensity of fruit flavour with the concomitant lean hard palates. This was particularly commented upon by the judges in the white classes where oak was not a part of the style such as rieslings, semillons, sauvignon blancs etc. The oaked chardonnay classes generally fared much better in the fruit intensity stakes but there were the usual issues with oxidation and inappropriate oak use or handling in quite a few entries. However, on the whole there were few really faulty wines amongst the chardonnays which is always a plus but there were many plain and boring examples.  That is, wines with no particular vice nor virtue.

The pinot noir and shiraz classes were as strong as ever and even though down quite a bit in entry numbers the shiraz classes were the largest in the show with the 2005 and older class having 139 entries from which 53% were awarded medals, so not only strong in numbers but strong in awards. The 2006 pinot class also had a high percentage of awards at 50%. The 2006 cabernet class was quite strong but this is not really reflected in the results as it transpired that the 2 top wines in the class were unbottled which precluded them from being awarded any medal.  One of those wines was described by the judging panel leader as “a cracker of a wine”.

I think I mentioned this last year but merlot continues to underperform in this forum but I hasten to add there were some very well put together cabernet merlot blends with one in particular standing out. It warmed my heart to see a couple of gold medals in the sparkling red class but I was expecting the sparkling white classes to be stronger.

The fortified wines were as strong as ever, particularly the muscats and tokays and there was one excellent example of the more modern, and one could say, correct style of Vintage Port. It was a pity that in the final trophy judging this wine came up against 2 absolutely outstanding Rutherglen cousins.

As a general overall observation, a common comment from the judges was the diversity of style they encountered in the majority of classes which I think is a very big plus. Australian wines in the past have been criticized as being too similar in style by some overseas commentators and I would love to have been able to show them some of these wines to show them how diverse out wines really are. Another general comment the judges made is that they were pleased to see very few really faulty wines this year and I think this is a trend we are seeing in most Australian shows just now.  One of the problems frequently commented upon last year was that of brettanomyces infection and it would appear that our winemakers are now well on top of that problem.

My thanks to the judging panels ably led by P-J Charteris from Brokenwood in the Hunter Valley, Tim Kirk from Clonakilla in the ACT and Dave Bicknell from Oakridge in the Yarra.  Also to the Associates who I’m sure benefited from the experience.

My congratulations go to the award winners and commiserations to those less fortunate, there is always next year! May I commend the wines to you.