I was recently in New Zealand, where there's still some commotion over allegations that a prominent winery had tried to improve on its performance in a wine competition by submitting wine made in special batches that were not generally available to the public.
Wither Hills, which makes beautiful Pinot Noirs ( among other wines) that are in Vintages from time to time, actually took out full- page newspaper advertisements to defend itself.
They are serious, of course, because it's important that any wine judged in competitions should be representative of the wine that it is. Ideally, wine submitted to a competition should be drawn randomly from stocks that are on general sale. In practice, they're supplied by the producer on the clear understanding they are samples of the commercial wine.
In this particular case, the judges in a competition determined the wine they were sent - the Sauvignon Blanc 2006 - was not the same as the wine on sale. One of the judges, leading New Zealand wine writer Michael Cooper, detected a difference between the wine he tasted in the competition and a bottle he bought. A chemical analysis of the two showed some differences.
The question was whether Wither Hills had made a special batch of wine for that competition. The judges had awarded the Wither Hills Sauvignon Blanc five stars. They withdrew the score and declined to rate the wine at all.
According to the producer, the wine sent to the judges was part of a batch of 2,228 cases out of a total production of 100,000 cases of the wine. They agreed they had made a mistake by entering bottles from a small batch, but argued it was a mistake and that it could just as easily have hurt their chances.
In fact, it's been reported that one of two tasters whom Mr. Cooper asked to compare the wines actually thought the supermarket wine was better. The other wasn't able to detect any difference between them.
The thing is, of course, that any wine made in large volumes ( like 100,000 cases) is drawn from a number of tanks and bottled in a number of bottling runs. It's expected that there are marginal variations in flavour and chemical analysis from one batch to another.
When I taste wines at wineries in, say, Europe, I have no idea ( unless I ask - and then it can take ages to get an answer) whether the wine I'm poured is from the batch that will go on sale in Ontario.
So is the Wither Hills affair a tempest in a wine glass? Not at all. It's important that wine competitions, whose results can influence sales, should be ( and be seen to be) aboveboard. If you see a wine has won gold or has won 90 or whatever points, you want to be sure the wine you buy is the same as the one tasted by the judges or reviewer.
This recent case is unpleasant for Wither Hills, but it serves to highlight the importance of clarity and transparency in wine competitions.
Janet Dorozynski, wine promotion co- ordinator at Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, and I are offering a four- session course on Canadian wine during January and February at the Vendange Institute. Called " The Essential Canadian Wine Course," it covers all Canada's wine regions and includes a wide range of tastings.
For more information, see www.vendangeinstitute.com.
Jancis Robinson, one of the world's best-known wine writers, recently visited Canada and tasted her way through a lineup of Canadian wines. I'll be doing a column on this in a few weeks, but in the meantime, you might look at her comments on her website (www.jancisrobinson.com) starting tomorrow, and at her column in the Food and Drink section of the Jan. 13 edition of the Financial Times ( London) at www.ft.com.