Of black teeth and thrilling whites REPORTING FROM BEHIND THE SCENES A S A W I N E J U D G E AT T H E N AT I O N A L S Jason Dziver
W I N E
L I F E
Treve Ring
The 2018 National Wine Awards of Canada was the biggest ever—with 7,400 bottles from 257 wineries to taste through.
H
ow do you prepare for a week judging the 2018 National Wine Awards of Canada? The country’s largest competition for 100 per cent Canadian-grown wine took place in Penticton mid-July. This year’s NWACs, the largest to date, attracted over 1,850 wines from 257 wineries, and from sea (Vancouver Island) to shining sea (Nova Scotia). It also went through 7,400 bottles, five days, 22 judges, countless Zwilling glasses washed (only a few broken) and an infinite number of sniffs, sips and spits. For me, as panel chair, the week also added up to two tubes of Sensodyne toothpaste, upwards of 40 shots of espresso, thousands of words logged as tasting notes and one unconfirmed sighting of Ogopogo. Not everyone who works in wine makes for a good wine judge. Years of dedicated tasting, evaluating, listening, travelling and learning from folks way smarter than you will get you started—plus you need a strong bent for detail, stamina, focus, humility, critical thinking and confidence to treat the wines and the process respectfully and judiciously. And when all is said and done and poured, you really, really have to be able to taste. Here are selected crib notes of what it was like to sit in a room for a week of summer to blind taste hundreds of wines during the day, before going out in the evening to taste dozens more with winemakers. And yes, it’s one of my favourite weeks of the year.
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