Wednesday, 5 September, 2007

Dear Friends - in Food & Wine

An abbreviated e-Newsletter today, because of the urgency of the first item.

Competition Entrants: Please Note

DELIVERY OF JUDGING SAMPLES ~ DEADLINE EXTENSION

Competition has extended the Judging Samples delivery deadline to Friday 28 September 2007.

Who would have thought, ten years ago, that terrorism could affect the organisation of an international wine competition, devoted to promoting the simple pleasures of fine wines and food in perfect harmony?

Judging Samples Deadline was announced as Friday 14 September, only a few days away. However, City of Sydney is in security lockdown with "the Great Wall of Sydney" a 2.8 metre high security fence erected, enclosing the Central Business District, razor wire, security guards and guard dogs patrolling the perimeter, causing cross city traffic and commuter chaos. All for the good cause of APEC, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference, with Heads of State from Russia, the United States, Republic of China, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, New Zealand and fourteen other Asia Pacific nations, including Australia, the host nation, attending. This is the highest level security operation ever mounted in Australia. Of course, this security is largely to do with the potential threat of terrorism. But it also means your (overseas, in particular) judging samples will likely be held up at Customs points and transport depots. Hence the extension in Delivery Deadline. As of September 5, we are still receiving entries!

WINNERS OF THE JULY 31 E-NEWSLETTER QUIZZES

1. Michele Payne (NSW/AU)
2. Kenton R P Fabrick (WA/USA)
3. Colin Hedley (Taranaki/NZ)
4. Stephen Reid (WA/AU)

CONGRATULATIONS WINNERS!

Your prizes have been despatched. Stephen just missed out on a prize in the first of the June 12 e-Newsletter quizzes. It was pleasing to see him try again and this time, to score!

QUIZ ANSWERS

Q1. "Lesser Recognised Grape Varieties" is a relative term. In this instance it refers to varieties which are lesser recognised in Australia. The Ted Radke Perpetual Trophy for "Best TOP 1OO Table Wine made from a Lesser Recognised Grape Variety" was jointly won in 2007 by two different wines, one from South Australia and one from New South Wales. What were the Lesser Recognised Grape Varieties from which the Joint Trophy Winners were made?

ANSWER
        HEARTLAND DOLCETTO LAGREIN 2005
        FREEMAN RONDINELLA CORVINA 2003

Click either wine's name for contact details and to read the judges' comments. Interestingly, all four varieties are from Italy's cooler, most northerly wine growing regions, Dolcetto from the North West, near the French border, the other three from the North East on the southern slopes of the Dolomites, just below Austria. Rondinella and Corvina are the main grape varieties in Valpolicella, which reaches its zenith in the great Amarone wines of the Trentino Alto-Ardige region.

Q2. "Name at least two food dishes which have been so applauded by the judges that they have been presented in the Finals "Judged with Food" Phase at two or more Sydney International Wine Competitions."

ANSWER
Well, that was an easy one. You only had to click the Site Navigation's Food Recipes link to access all the recipes, most offering photography of the dish offered to the judges to complement their Style Categories Finals judging - since 1999!

WHY NOT TRY AN EDUCATIONAL WINE/FOOD DINNER PARTY?
We receive correspondence.

"Last Saturday's Dinner Party was a great success. We invited four other friends whom we know are interested in wine. I prepared three of the dishes that the Judges experienced, recipes down-loaded from the Food Recipes link on the website, and George acquired two of the (less expensive) wines that won awards when judged alongside those dishes. We presented the wines blind and asked our friends to comment on the wines and their relationship to the food. Then we gave them a photocopy of the judges' comments on those wines, downloaded from your website. A really fun evening. No football!" Les & George, Toowoomba.

BEAUTIFUL VINEYARDS
Now automated!

Photography of Beautiful Vineyards around the world used to appear just one at a time, static, on the Home Page, when you entered www.top100wines.com Now, they change every twelve seconds, drawn randomly from the Beautiful Vineyards database, and you can experience a "trip around the world" just sitting there at home, watching our Home Page.

We will have to limit Beautiful Vineyards photography soon because of band-width limitations. In the meantime, click on any of the Beautiful Vineyards photography to be immediately immersed in an enlargement of the shot and an application pro-forma to send your own photography of a Beautiful Vineyard.

JUDGES' FAREWELL DINNER ~ 12 OCTOBER
Wine List Finalised ~ Alpha Order ~ Course by Course

For Bookings: click HERE

Apéritif
Hardy's "Arras" Chardonnay/Pinot Noir 1997

Food 1 ~ Sparkling Wines
Champagne Lanson "Gold Label" 1996
Hanging Rock "Macedon" Late Disgorged Cuvée VII" NV
Jansz Tasmania Late Disgorged Premium Vintage Cuvée 2000

Food 2 ~ Medium Bodied Whites
Dom. François Villard "Contours des Poncoins" Viognier 2005
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2005
Yalumba "The Virgilius" Eden Valley Viognier 2005

Food 3 ~ Full Bodied Reds
Chapel Hill McLaren Vale Shiraz 2000
Vasse Felix Margaret River "Heytesbury" Cab Sauv/Malbec/Merlot 2001
Zenato "Amarone della Valpolicella" DOC Covina/Rondinella/Sangiovese 2000

Food 4 ~ Dessert Wines
Andrew Quady Madera California "Electra" Orange Muscat 1998
Cavit "Arèle" Vino Santo Trentino NV
De Bortoli "Noble One" Australian Botrytis Semillon 1999

ONE IN THREE FRENCH WINES A SHAM: CONSUMER GROUP
ABC News    4 September 2007

One in three of all wines marketed under France's regional appellation system - from Bordeaux to Cahors, Saint-Emilion or Sancerre - do not deserve the label, a top French consumer group says.

Under France's wine classification system, wines from some 470 regions are each recognised as an "appellation d'origine controlee" (AOC) -- a system based on the notion of "terroir" according to which wine-growing areas have specific characters, nurtured since Gallo-Roman times.

But according to France's UFC-Que Choisir consumer rights group, slack controls, which saw 99 per cent of all candidate wines awarded their AOC label in 2005, and pressure to produce higher yields, have led to a collapse in quality.

"For a number of years, we've seen a steady fall in quality in a number of AOCs, which has completely undermined consumer confidence," Alain Bazot, the Association's head, told reporters. UFC said that one in three AOC bottles were now either of sub-standard quality or insufficiently linked to the region, questioning the impartiality of the AOC award panels, made up of local wine professionals.

The UFC-Que Choisir association called for the national appellation institute INAO to take urgent steps to correct the situation, if necessary by striking wines from AOC lists, warning it may be "the last chance" for the system to reform.   – AFP

WHAT A PERFECT AUDIENCE!
FREE SIWC WEBSITE BANNER ADVERTISEMENTS
Banners soon to be Automated, and their reach extended.

"The first twenty acceptable Banners will be Free-of-Charge for six months!"

Competition is about to automate our advertising display banners. Presently, when a visitor logs onto www.top100wines.com, the banners are drawn randomly from a database, and remain static at the top of each page the visitor views. That's not bad!

With the automated system, the banners will still be drawn randomly from the database but, whilst the visitor remains on any given page the banners will change every 12 seconds. Coupled with this, we will limit the database of banners to just thirty at any given time. This will significantly increase each advertiser's exposure.

You can review the requirements at www.top100wines.com/banner-advertising Just click on the banner that is shown to print the PDF document which contains the new specifications. THE FIRST TWENTY ACCEPTABLE BANNERS - FOC! - for the first six months. Why not?

Warren Mason
Competition Director