Wine judging is a structured, sensory-driven evaluation process designed to assess a wine’s quality, craftsmanship, and authenticity within its varietal and regional context. The process brings together trained professionals who apply standardized criteria and scoring systems to promote consistency, objectivity, and fairness.
Through blind tasting, judges focus solely on what the wine presents in the glass. Evaluation centers on appearance, aroma, flavor development, balance, finish, and overall harmony. The goal is not only to identify technical excellence and detect potential flaws, but also to determine how accurately the wine expresses its intended style, varietal, and place of origin. Individual assessments are combined with structured panel discussion and consensus-building, creating a credible and repeatable system for recognizing quality and establishing benchmarks for producers and consumers alike.
Judging Framework
- Panels may include wine media, buyers, sommeliers, winemakers, and educators.
- The number of panels is subject to the quantity of wines submitted for judging.
- The number of judges within each panel typically consists of three or five people, allowing majority consensus when unanimity is not reached.
- Panels use a systematic approach to provide objective, standardized approach to promote consistency and objectivity in scoring.
Evaluation Criteria
- Appearance: Clarity, color, and signs of faults (e.g., oxidation, haze, flocculation).
- Aroma: Varietal character; absence of oxidative or microbial flaws.
- Taste: Flavor intensity, complexity, mouthfeel.
- Balance: Integration of acidity, tannin, alcohol, oak, and sweetness.
- Finish: Length and quality of aftertaste.
- Overall Impression: Accuracy of varietal/style expression and harmony between aroma and flavor.
Scoring Process
- Blind Tasting: Judges evaluate wines strictly by sensory quality.
- Quality and Typicity Assessment: Measure both technical quality and varietal/appellation authenticity.
- Scoring: Assign point score or medal designation.
- Consensus: Discuss discrepancies; retaste if needed; finalize agreed score.
Medal Standards
Double Gold (95–100): Exceptional in all respects; flawless; unanimous agreement among judges.
Gold (90–94): Exceptional quality; no flaws; majority agreement among judges
Silver (85–89): Strong, well-made wine with above-average quality.
Bronze (80–84): Meets baseline quality expectations.
No award: Wine is not sound and does not meet quality expectations.
Maintaining integrity for Blind Tasting
- Assign each wine a random four-digit code at check-in.
- Label all glasses and score sheets with the code.
- Flights usually include up to 10–12 wines.
- Judges may be told – varietal, vintage, blend %, appellation, and residual sugar (sweet wines poured last).
- Judges taste in silence and record notes.
- Judges may request a new bottle if a flaw is suspected at any time during the judging process.
- Panel discusses and finalizes consensus scores.
- Results are entered into the database.
- Fresh bottles are opened for medal rounds
Sweepstakes Evaluation
The Sweepstakes concludes with the selection of Best Red of Show and Best White of Show.
The Sweepstakes evaluation is the final stage of judging and features the highest-performing wines from the competition.
Within each defined class, a Best of Class wine is selected to ensure fair and comparable evaluation. Category winners then advance to the Sweepstakes round.
Sweepstakes judging is conducted by all judges who participated in the initial judging, rather than by smaller panels. Wines are re-tasted blind and evaluated alongside other Best of Class winners across all categories.
Judges access each wine based on distinction, balance, age-worthiness and overall excellence. Final Sweepstakes awards are determined by consensus or structured voting, in accordance with competition protocol.