The Facts:

Wine competitions are held around the world. The larger of these include the International Wine and Spirits Competition (Surrey, UK), the Decanter World Wine Awards (London, UK) and the International Wine Challenge (London, UK). Most international wines available in India already enter in these competitions. In fact, many Indian winemakers participate too, and when they do well, promote their successes. For example, the Château Indage Ivy Chenin Blanc 2003 received commendations and the Grover La Reserve was rated as the Best New World Wine at the Decanter Awards. So why a special wine award for India? Is the market mature enough?

The India Wine Challenge is slated to be held during IFE in December this year. All wines that are sold in India are eligible for entry. This includes foreign wines that are imported into India. Entry is $160 per bottle. If a producer is already participating in IFE, they get to submit one bottle for free. The deadline for submission is August 24th, 2007. There are no limits on the number of wines that can be entered. Wines must be held in quantities of at least 1,000 liters to be eligible for entry. The wines must be made from 100% grapes grown in the country in which the wine bottle is produced. The only exceptions are “cross regional” and “inter-national” blends. Three bottles of wine must be submitted for every entry. A maximum of 40% of the wines will receive medals.

This maybe changed in exceptional circumstances. The medals will be awarded to wines in specific national and international categories.

As of now, little information is available on who the final judges will be. The actual judging will take place some time in October in London. This is to avoid the high excise duties and transportation costs, say the organisers. We do know that there will be a combination of Indian and International judges with the majority being from outside India. No information has been shared on how the tastings will be conducted. The only public information available is that the tastings will be conducted blind.

IFE (International Food Drink & Hospitality Exhibition) holds an annual food and wine exhibition in December of each year. It is roughly of the same size and scope as IFOWS (India International Food and Wine Show), which is held in January. Last year 12-14 wine producers participated in IFE. With the growing interest in wine in India, more international winemakers will probably participate in this year’s exhibition. Robert Joseph is editor-at-large of Wine-Business International.

Analysis:

Entering a national wine competition of this kind can be a tricky business. It can often make or break a winemaker. Furthermore, it can disrupt a wine market.

For a blind tasting, the bottle labels are hidden.

Here in India, there aren’t even any formal wine rating mechanisms as yet, let alone wine competitions. Some may argue that holding a wine competition so early in the country’s wine development can be disruptive.To date, Sommelier India has not formally rated wines. The reason is simple – we are not confident that there are enough qualified independent professionals to form a tasting panel and have their names associated with rating scores.

A larger question is why hold a wine challenge at all? Indian wines participate in competitions outside the country and compete with some of the best wines in the world. With the panel being comprised of mostly international critics how special or different is this competition to any other one? Is it even really that Indian?

For the India Wine Challenge to gain wider acceptance here’s what it needs to do:

1. Announce who the judges are immediately. It is hard for a producer to know how credible the competition is going to be, without knowing who is judging. All major international wine competitions list their judges on their websites before the submission deadline. For a new competition, this is even more important. Participants will want to know the technical credentials of the judges and how they are tied to the wine industry. For example, do they supply and consult with participating companies?

2. Make sure that the number of judges is large and try to get more Indians involved. It is fairly common for the larger competitions to have 30 or 40 judges with a select few specializing in a specific region. If this is to be an India Wine Challenge, it should have more Indian judges – who have an Indian palate. Understandably, this is difficult to do.

3. Explain the judging process in more detail. Any winemaker considering participating needs confidence that the judging process will be fair, transparent and completely professional. There is a myriad ways to conduct a blind tasting and certain conditions can suit some wines over others. For example, how will the wines be tasted, what criteria will be used, will they be in flights grouped by region or year, how many stages will the judging process have and how many wines will a single judge taste.

4. Give assurances that the tastings will truly be blind and explain how the anonymity of the tasting process will be protected. As Indians, we are sometimes suspicious of competitions. While the International Wine Challenge has a strong reputation, not everyone in India may know about it. Local credibility will still need to be established.

Choosing to participate or not in a competition’s first year is a difficult decision especially with so little information available. By participating, you get a better sense of how your wine stacks up against others and you may even win. That would give you good public relations benefits. But at the same time, by participating you are endorsing the competition. That’s a risk before knowing how credible the competition is, who the judges are and how the wines will be judged. One thing is certain: you cannot participate and then question the credibility of the competition if you don’t fare well after the results are announced! The last thing you want is for the competition to be akin to an industry poll where some of the winners were involved in organizing the poll too!

Shiv Singh

For more specifics on the India Wine Challenge download their application form.