Wine competitions: quality signals or fruitless endeavours?
In 1224, in his notable poem Battle of the Wines, Henry d’Andeli tells the story of a famous wine tasting organized by the French king Philip Augustus. In this tasting, samples from across Europe were tasted and judged by an English priest. The priest classified the wines as either ‘Celebrated’ in the case of those which pleased him or ‘Excommunicated’ for those that did not. With the rise of the industrial revolution and the growth of international trade, the wine industry has become a $354.7 billion global market. But wine quality cannot be ascertained ex-ante, for this reason, the industry faces an information asymmetry problem. The producer, distributor or retailer involved in the economic transaction often possess greater material knowledge than the general consumer. Where this is the case, systems emerge which attempt to address this information imbalance. Filmmakers spend millions creating trailers, in literature, there are renowned awards such as the Booker Prize, and in the wine industry there have been scores and competitions. From well-established, renowned international awards to small, emerging regional competitions, format and scale is broad and diverse. However, in a marketplace where applications like Vivino provide consumers with immediate community-generated reviews, whether competitions are effective tools in establishing objective, qualitative benchmarks to aid purchasing decisions or serve as revenue-generating marketing machines is not altogether clear. In this article, I explore the research on wine competitions and discuss what producers should consider before entering their wines into a competition.
Cap management in winemaking: punching, pumping and considerations
In order to make wine, grapes must undergo alcoholic fermentation. In the case of red wine, the vessel used for fermentation, dependent upon winemaker preference, will also contain the skins, seeds and stems. During fermentation, yeast produce carbon dioxide, this carbon dioxide causes grape solids to rise creating what is referred to as a cap. The cap can present a number of risks, a combination of acetic bacteria, the warmth of fermentation and oxygen could easily convert a vat to vinegar. For this reason, winemakers must manage the cap. Cap management also forms part of the winemakers desired stylistic preference. Tannins, anthocyanins and flavour compounds, all essential to a wines character, are found in large quantities in grape skins and so varying methods of cap management will greatly alter a finished wine. Fail at cap management, and you may well have failed the wine.