The India Wine Challenge: Supplying the wine

Responding to queries we have been receiving regarding the supply of wine to be tasted for the India Wine Challenge, Robert Joseph noted in an email to Sommelier India, "Almost all wine competitions rely on samples submitted by producers. Financially, it would be very hard to run a competition in which everything was purchased – and we would in any case run the problem in India, in particular, of producers claiming that the samples we had bought had been spoiled by bad shipping/storage.

The way we prevent wineries from submitting faked/atypical samples (and it has happened over the years to various competitions – quite recently in New Zealand to Wither Hills) is that we keep bottles of the winning wines that are submitted and subsequently compare these to bottles of the same wine that we buy ourselves. If necessary, at that stage, we can also subject both samples to chemical analysis.

If significant differences are found, we a) remove the medal; b) ban the winery from entering the competition in the future and c) inform the media. These measures are intended to serve as a deterrent, and in my experience, they have done so pretty effectively."

To learn more about the Indian Wine Challenge and some of the feedback we have received, view the original article.