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Sydney International Wine Competition

Incorporating the TOP 1OO Wines - Judged With Food

 

 

 

10 September 2014

Close. Close of Entries.

Orbiting potential Entrants for the 2015 Competition are now approaching final trajectory for touchdown on or before 19 September 2014.

 

Entry Forms 2015 Competition

 

Close of entries

19 September 2014

 

Samples Deadline

26 September 2014

Six Samples per Entry

 

Delivery Address

SIWC Storage

Wentworth Falls,

NSW 2782 Australia

 

 

A Genuine Misunderstanding.

On Monday, 1 September, 2014,

McLaren Vale Wine Show issued this Press Release.

 

Quote:

 

Media Release - major announcement.

McLaren Vale Wine Show. Wine Show re-imagined - with food - and consumers.

 

The 2014 McLaren Vale Wine Show will become the first wine show in Australia and possibly the world to introduce food into the judging process while also inviting the public inside the show via a series of unique dinners and tasting events.

Anna Bartsch

 

Later, same day, same recipients.

We fully acknowledge that the TOP 1OO Wines, part of the Sydney International Wine Competition, does judge with food and that The Royal Sydney Show judged the Rose class with food this year. Anna Bartsch

 

Then, Tuesday, 9 September.

Clarification: The McLaren Vale Wine Show acknowledges that Sydney International Wine Show TOP 1OO has been hosting dinners for sections of the public since the early 1980s. Anna Bartsch

 

 

In Point of Fact

Sydney International Wine Competition, with the aim of elevating consumer choice towards informed selection for a particular occasion, has been judging its Finalists alongside appropriate food, and inviting winelovers to variously experience our Award winners at Public Tastings, Dégustation Dinners - and/or via the Competition's comprehensive website descriptions - for over thirty years! You have attended? Care to comment?

 

 

 

SIWC Bottle Medallions

SIWC's Distinctive Award winners' Bottle Medallions are recognised by winelovers around the world as a trusted icon, offering endorsement from high profile, independent Judges of superior quality wines of current drinkability, and of Style Category appropriateness for any given family, social or business occasion. It's the Style Category classification that makes the difference.

 

 

 

Stellar Panel

In point of fact, a series of Stellar Panels of highly qualified international wine judges, and the 2015 Panel, led by Panel Chairman Kym Milne, is right up to the standard of previous years.

 

Kym Milne MW (South Australia) International Wine Consultant (16 Appearances)

Neil Hadley MW (South Australia) Export Manager, Taylors Wines (13 Appearances)

Steve Flamsteed (Victoria) Chief Winemaker, Innocent Bystander Wines (8 Appearances)

Brent Marris, (Marlborough NZ) Chief Winemaker/Proprietor, Marisco Wines (8 Appearances)

Ken Dobler, (New South Wales) Medical Practitioner (7 Appearances)

Warren Gibson, (Hawkes Bay NZ) Chief Winemaker, Trinity Hills Wines (6 Appearances)

Rob Geddes MW, (New South Wares) Wine Educator, Author, Celebrity Speaker (4 Appearances)

Mark Robertson, (South Australia) Chief Winemaker, Treasury Wine Estates (4 Appearances)

Cameron Douglas MS (Auckland NZ) Wine Consultant, Educator, Columnist (2 Appearances)

Bryan Currie (New South Wales) Senior Winemaker, McWilliams Wines (2 Appearances)

And Four New Faces

Tim Wildman MW (UK) Proprietor, Vineyard Safaris, Green Shoot Film, Educator, Judge, Wine Writer

Fred Dame MS (USA) Vice President, Prestige Accounts, American Wine & Spirits of California.

Dr Sue Bastian (South Australia) Senior Lecturer, Oenology & Sensory Studies, University of Adelaide

Stuart Halliday (New South Wales) Sommelier of the Year 2003-4-9 Dux, Evans Tutorial 2009, GM/Sommelier, Tetsuya's (Sydney)

 

 

 

Judging Samples Freight Consolidations

 

"It would seem that Hellmann have been contracted to consolidate and freight forward for a number of shows.

I think the Sydney International will be the fourth show this year alone that we have sent our wine samples to them for this purpose. So far, everything has worked very smoothly. They have responded promptly to any questions and when we had an issue with payment before shipping for a show, they found a solution quickly that worked for both parties."

Julia Sallen, International Visitor & Event Coordinator/PA, Pernod-Ricard Winemakers, New Zealand

 

Italy, Spain, France, USA, Chile, South Africa, New Zealand and most other countries, from departure to on-time DDP delivery to SIWC Competition's Storage, Hellmann offers a single, fixed-fee service. There is no financial arrangement between Hellmann and the Competition. The main attraction for us is their worldwide coverage and their offer to translate our communications into the local language. Judging Samples are arriving now. Deadline for Judging samples is 26 September 2014, but the sooner the better.

 

Main contact for Hellmann Logistical enquiries:

Sydney Office: Ms Ilaria Giovannetti; igiovann@au.hellmann.net ;

+61 02 9667 7555, or your local Hellmann Depot. www.hellmann.net 

 

 

For Further Information

For further information on any of the above

Warren Mason +61 (0)2 4757 4400

wbmason@top100wines.com

 

 

 

Here's a recent report that caught my eye.

France has Not Lost its Nose for Wine - In Fact, the Future is Rosé

Knowing less about wine than they once did, the French are more relaxed about drinking it

 

There is a wonderful line in Julia Child's memoir, My Life in France, in which she explains the average Frenchman's view - as she sees it - of hard work.

"These notions of yours are all very fascinating, no doubt, but we make a decent living," she imagines him saying. "Nobody has ulcers. I have time to work on my monograph about Balzac, and my foreman enjoys his espaliered pear trees."

It's the commitment to artistic endeavour ("hobbies" seems too denigrating a word) that grabs me here. There are certain expectations levied on the French. One is that they will not drink eight pints in the pub every night while shouting at the telly and call that a cultural pursuit. Another is that they will know about wine.

As a country, we are irrationally nervous about our perceived lack of wine expertise. We worry that we don't know which of Crozes-Hermitage or Châteauneuf-du-Pape is in the Rhône (both, actually). And such perceived wine inferiority gets us into a great panic. That's why there is such unconfined glee at the news that, allegedly, "France has lost its nose for wine".

A survey conducted by the French wine magazine Terre de Vins found that only 3 per cent of Gallic responders considered themselves expert in vinous matters; 26 per cent felt they knew enough to get by; 43 per cent - imagine it, from this country of forbidding sommeliers and dismissive shrugs - admitted to knowing nothing about wine at all. Nothing!

As if, standing in the confessional and quivering while giving up his darkest secrets, Terre de Vins director Rodolphe Wartel also conceded that the British "are perhaps greater connoisseurs than us".

Before anyone gets too smug about this, we should remember a recent survey which found that 58 per cent of Britons think Chablis is a grape (it's a wine region in France) while 43 per cent think chardonnay is a region (it's the grape used to make Chablis).

My question, rather, is this: have the French in fact ever known as much as we think about wine? Or is it just that some of them do?

"Age, sex and social origins come into play," says Anne Burchett, the French head of Sopexa UK, a marketing and PR agency for food and wine with a heavy French client base. "At one extreme you had older French men who, yes, did see it as their birthright and part of their masculinity to be knowledgeable about wine. To point out that they didn't have a clue was a sure way to get into trouble."

According to Wartel, class is still a factor, with white-collar workers more knowledgeable about wine than their blue-collar counterparts. He also claims that this divide is alienating working-class families who might once have enjoyed a cheap bottle of wine at the dinner table, but who now turn to beer or soft drinks instead.

My own experience suggests that those who live among vineyards are still likely to drink - and know - a fair bit of wine. Bordeaux is arguably the world crucible of wine snobbery, a place where understanding which grape comes from where is as much a part of etiquette as eating with the right fork. More interestingly, in recent years the French have also demonstrated a marked un-snobbishness.

For instance, they drink more rosé - a colour still not deemed serious - than white wine. They have also embraced with fervour flavoured wines, such as rosé with grapefruit, a frippery that only arrived over here when smiley Paul Schaafsma, an Aussie big cheese at the huge Accolade Wines, spotted them on holiday and thought Brits would like them, too. They're going great guns in ASDA, (a British supermarket chain) apparently).

"My perception is that gender is no longer so relevant and that young men don't feel they have to know about wine," says Burchett. "Interestingly, this loss of the fantasy that to be male and French meant you were automatically a wine expert has led to a renewed and genuine interest among younger generations, as shown by the number of oenology classes in French towns that certainly didn't exist in my day."

So I wonder. Are the results of that survey all they seem? Or do they suggest that rather than knowing less about wine than they once did, the French are simply now far more relaxed about owning up to what they might and might not know? I suspect the latter. And that they do it with a great panache we might all do well to adopt.

By Victoria Moore

THE TELEGRAPH 'WINE'

04 Sep 2014