Recently, I was looking to purchase a bottle of Chardonnay so decided to check out a website that had published their wine awards for this year. I noted a bottle of interest that was given a Gold medal and then went to my local bottle shop to purchase a bottle.
But as I stood in front of the wine on the shelf, I wondered, why should I buy this wine? Why did the judges from that wine awards website give this wine a Gold medal? Did the judges enjoy the medium toastiness along with the ripe pineapple aromas and flavours? Did they like the buttery smoothness of the wine coming from malolactic fermentation? What if I am a consumer who doesn’t like oaked Chardonnay, or if I wanted to figure out if this wine would pair with a lightly poached fish? What can I tell about the wine, if it is only listed as “XXXXX Winery Chardonnay 2021”?
What if the grape variety or varieties are not posted on the wine’s label? That is quite common for European wine, which may only list the winery, town, or vineyard. I would say that wine tasting notes are then even more important.
Some wine websites do openly post the tasting notes for their winning wines. I applaud that. But other websites, do not post the tasting notes, or require you to be a paying member to their website to access their tasting notes, which I don’t think is fair. Wineries typically are required to pay for each wine that they submit for a competition, so the tasting notes should be published as part of the judging process. The goal at the end is for wineries to get people to purchase their wines. Tasting notes freely published would help people figure out if a wine fits with their tastes.
What do you think? Would you like to know more about an awarded wine before you purchase it? Leave your comments below. Cheers.
