BOTTLE STICKERS proclaiming that “excellent” wines have won “Gold Wine Awards” continue to mislead those who don’t know better – although it could be said that gullible wine lovers have only themselves to blame. It could also be said that those cellars participating in the competiton and buying the stickers to put on their bottles are as guilty as the organisers in bringing the South African wine industry into disrepute.

The scriptwriters maintain that: “The Gold Wine Awards was born out of a need to help the consumer make educated buying decisions and to promote worthy wines.” However, the competition does not educate the consumer. Their website doesn’t divulge who the organisers are. Nor does it provide the names of the winning wines. And if this doesn’t say enough about the lack of transparency, there’s more.

They further maintain that: “With the huge variety of wines available to the consumer on the shelves, there is very little to guide them, especially in the lower price categories.” Not true. There are a number of other, more reputable competitions and guides, both online and in print, many of which have more meaningful value-for-money components to their recommendations.

“Wines are judged by qualified tasters,” they say. Not that we’re told the names of the judges, who by association are also party to the shenanigans. “Research has shown that most of the time,” according to whoever is behind the Gold Wine Awards, “receiving an award in a wine competition is just about random.” What nonsense! And apparently this competition “gives wines that might not have done well in other competitions a second chance to shine…” Are they listening to themselves when they ‘shoot themselves in the foot’!

“It has been found,” they continue, “that when wine tasters know the price of a wine they tend to be biased in favour of the more expensive wines.” What are they on about, you may well ask. In most other competitons the judges are not told the identities or the prices of what they’re assessing, whereas the Gold Wine Awards’ judges are told what the price ceiling is set at (R130pb in 2019).

Moreover: “No details will be released concerning the judging process and reasoning. No feedback of any nature will be given… Only a list of producers that were designated Top 10 Excellent Value at the Price Producers will be made public. There will be no list of all the wineries that have taken part in the competition, nor the score assigned to any wine.”

More than a week after the producers who’d entered the competition were told of the results, the names of the Top 10 producers had yet to be made public – and as in previous years, the only way of knowing which wines got the nod from the judges is if you stumble upon bottles with the stickers on them or come across a tweet or post on the subject by a winning winery.

Do the Gold Wine Awards equate to a gold medal or an excellent score from any of the top panels locally or internationally? Of course not!