> Why come wine tasting at the Bordeaux wine awards ?

A challenge... and a pleasure !

Wine tasting at the Bordeaux Wine Awards means participating in an world renowned event, an absolute must-do. It means sharing ones’ opinions with professionals, in a warm and friendly setting, to appreciate the qualities of the latest vintages.

Ideal conditions

The wine tasters benefits from spacious parking lots, a stone’s throw away from the Palais des Congrés. The reception and direction of juries to their tables is carried out quickly and efficiently, thanks to a bar code system.

Everything is put in place to create the ideal conditions for wine tasting :

• The organisers pay close attention to the surroundings : the acoustics, space, the room temperature, clarity and brightness of the lights... The bottles are set up at least one hour before the wine tasting begins, to ensure the ideal temperature.
• Each taster may avail of a second ’twin’ bottle, for each sample, in case of a problem, such as the wine being corked.
• The wines are distributed according to the maturation method as well as the colour, appellation and the vintage. Wines matured in casks are thus separated from those that are not.

A collaborative decision

After an initial individual analysis, the judges decide together or under the guidance of an oenologist, if the wines presented to their table deserve a medal or not ; and if they do, which medal (gold, silver or bronze). The decision is therefore a collaborative decision and not simply the sum of individual opinions.

No fraud

The Bordeaux Wine Awards, approved by the Minister for Agriculture and organised by the Department of Agriculture of the Gironde region, has created different systems to avoid all attempts at fraud :

• The candidate wines are not sent to the organisation, but are preselected directly at the château. This method allows us to ensure that the wine put forward by the producer is indeed the wine that will be tasted on the day of the competitions. It also lets us check the volume !

• So that the results remain impartial, the tasting is done as a blind test. The bottles have, obviously, no means of identification. They carry an identification number, the appellation and the vintage. It is therefore impossible for the taster to know the producer ! Wines from producers and wines from merchants are not separated on the tables. A member of the jury who is also a vintner may not judge his own wines.

• The General Directorate for Fair Trading, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control is fully authorized to inspect prize-winning wines at any given moment.

• A numbering system permits the inspection of medal stickers on the bottles, preventing a non-prize-winning wine being given a medal from the wine awards.

Immediate results

Once the tastings are finished, an optic reading system, established by the Department of Agriculture of the Gironde region, analyses the scoring sheets exceptionally quickly.

A certified competition

The Bordeaux Wine Awards are ISO 9001 certified – version 2000 for its organisation, efficient and highly capable judging by an independent certifying body. This recognition emphasizes and rewards the professionalism of the organisation. To know more about the certification...

A contribution to the vitality of the domain

Wine tasting at the Bordeaux Wine Awards also means to contribute, in one’s own way, to the vitality of the Aquitaine wine sector across the world !

An organisation committed to sustainable development

Since 2006, the Bordeaux Wine Awards – Wines of Aquitaine has been 100% committed to sustainable development. Everything is considered so as to limit the impact on the environment, combining social and economic responsibilities ; sorting waste, reducing the use of paper to a strict minimum, selecting suppliers within the region, partnerships with associations and much more. To know more about eco-commitment...