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Awards and medals have been mentioned in passing in a few other threads, but I don’t think they’ve ever been discussed in general. I was therefore wondering what your thoughts are on them?

If awards are given out as a guide to consumers, then with Port they are always going to have an odd place; there isn’t much point in awarding them for fully mature VP which is only available at a very high cost or on the secondary market. However, for LBVs, especially unfiltered ones, which are generally consumed quite young I am surprised that more aren’t awarded. Does anyone have any idea as to why this is? Are the shippers not entering their Ports? Do the main competition bodies not accept fortified wines? (Or is Port simply a bad drink and we’re just deluded? ).

The other thing I don’t quite understand is why certain Ports win awards. Indeed, the reason for this thread was that I poked my nose into the Oddbins “Fine Wine† branch at Holborn today and was surprised to see the Dow’s 2001 LBV with what (to me at least) was a new gold-coloured label. Apparently, this was commemorating its winning a gold medal from the Wine Spectator. Although I quite like this Port: I’ve drunk half-a-dozen bottles or so of it over the last year; I generally regard it as a inoffensive wine that was reasonable value when it cost between £5 and £8 a bottle. Even just comparing it to other 2001 LBVs, I certainly wouldn’t regard it a gold-medal-class.

Perhaps it’s just me, but looking at the Symington 2007 Awards List, my distribution of medals would probably be quite different, and I wonder if anyone else would agree?

-Jacob

There was a news story very recently about how one of these awards outfits were fooled by a fictional restaurant in Italy, who deliberately submitted a wine list that was full of the worst rated wines, yet still got a top rating - I forget the detail.

The bottom line was that the provider of the award was so focused on getting fees from the applicants, they didn't bother to check if they were worthy or not.

I had a quick glance at the most recent Decanter awards to port producers and was very suspicious that the same attitude is prevailing there - if you pay the money, you get the result..

Now, I'd be very happy to judge the fare of the port producers for free, and I suspect most of us here would be happy to blind taste samples (to the most exacting professional standards) - and even basic rubies - provided the tasting samples are gratis.

We've talked about this before, perhaps those of us who are headed out in a few days time should put this subject high on the agenda..

Tom

It wasn't quite that bad. The wine critic did include numerous (read: 15) wines that Wine Spectator had rated exceptionally poorly, but that was in a wine list of 250+ wines. Their response to the "sting" was that they aren't evaluating the restaurant, they're evaluating its wine list. And the wine list produced was well rounded and worthy of the award.

Here's the critic's post on the subject:
http://wine-econ.org/2008/08/21/wine-sp ... lence.aspx

and here's an LA Times article which contains part of Wine Spectator's rebuff:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-w ... 7368.story

Thanks for the links Glenn - whatever Wine Spectator may say in their defence, that prankster proved his point - the awards have more to do with making money than ferreting out the very best establishments.

Taking another well known name to task, the Decanter vintage guide for port is dire; with significant years missed, a star rating that few would concur with, and advice on drinkability that includes a 'drink now' for 2002...!

http://www.decanter.com/vintageguides/r ... age%20Port

I wonder if they'd like someone to edit it for them..?

Tom

I saw Quinta do Castelinho with a medal on the label. Not sure I would like to be a judge at that meet. For the money, it's a decent value, but I did not know "on the budget for an OK LBV" was a category.

Glenn E. wrote:It wasn't quite that bad. The wine critic did include numerous (read: 15) wines that Wine Spectator had rated exceptionally poorly, but that was in a wine list of 250+ wines. Their response to the "sting" was that they aren't evaluating the restaurant, they're evaluating its wine list. And the wine list produced was well rounded and worthy of the award.

I think I mentioned this on but what seemed particularly inditing about this affair was that (I’d forgotten we had that graphic!) doesn’t seem to be checking that the wine-list submitted is actually the one being offered by the restaurant. It would be quite easy to imagine a place submitting an “enhanced† list, which contained a number of highly-rated wines, to just for the purposes of winning the award, without stocking them. Although a fake restaurant is a bit silly, an enhanced wine-list from a real restaurant is easier to imagine.

uncle tom wrote:Taking another well known name to task, the Decanter vintage guide for port is dire; with significant years missed, a star rating that few would concur with, and advice on drinkability that includes a 'drink now' for 2002...!

http://www.decanter.com/vintageguides/r ... age%20Port

I wonder if they'd like someone to edit it for them..?

According to this page, it is being edited…by Richard Mayson…

That said, this is exactly the issue I was hoping to raise with this thread. Why is that awards for Port are in this state?

JacobH wrote:Why is that awards for Port are in this state?

Perhaps we could start making our own awards - as voted on by the membership collectively? Best LBV / Tawny / Colheita / VP / SQVP etc? I am sure we could debate the rules and regulations with much gusto given the pedants we mostly seem to be!

JacobH wrote:I think I mentioned this on but what seemed particularly inditing about this affair was that (I’d forgotten we had that graphic!) doesn’t seem to be checking that the wine-list submitted is actually the one being offered by the restaurant. It would be quite easy to imagine a place submitting an “enhanced† list, which contained a number of highly-rated wines, to just for the purposes of winning the award, without stocking them. Although a fake restaurant is a bit silly, an enhanced wine-list from a real restaurant is easier to imagine.

Agreed, and the critic did mention that in his write-up.

What's funny (at least to me) is that the "stinger" may have been stung himself. It seems that a restaurant by that name does actually exist, and they have been jovially bragging about "their" award.

According to this page, it is being edited…by Richard Mayson…

I had already noted his byline on Decanter texts, but the glaring errors and omissions make me feel that this customer does not have his fullest attention..

Tom

benread wrote: Perhaps we could start making our own awards - as voted on by the membership collectively? Best LBV / Tawny / Colheita / VP / SQVP etc? I am sure we could debate the rules and regulations with much gusto given the pedants we mostly seem to be!

Especially if the port houses give us a discount if we award their port "de oro".

mosesbotbol wrote:

benread wrote: Perhaps we could start making our own awards - as voted on by the membership collectively? Best LBV / Tawny / Colheita / VP / SQVP etc? I am sure we could debate the rules and regulations with much gusto given the pedants we mostly seem to be!

Especially if the port houses give us a discount if we award their port "de oro".

Heh, I just returned to this thread after seeing the title and thinking "we should make our own awards." Day late, and a bottle short.
So! If we were to make our own awards, how would we proceed? We agreed it is difficult to compare Vintage wines, and I think there's genuinely less interest around here for tawnies and LBV/VCharacter/Crusted/etc's. Would we pursue young wines and make an assessment? Perhaps vintages 8-12 years old and announce which we think has the best potential? And would doing all of this result in anything more than another reason for Port prices to increase?

SushiNorth wrote:And would doing all of this result in anything more than another reason for Port prices to increase?

Depends whether the award goes to the best bottle or simply the one we believe deserves to have its price inflated

Somehow, giving awards to vintage port seems a bit tacky; rate them certainly, but handing out gold stars doesn't seem quite right.

On the other hand, a properly conducted blind tasting of each year's crop of LBV's, with separate classes for filtered and unfiltered, would be a very valid exercise, and similar tastings of the other Special Category wines could also be conducted.

The winner in each class would then be awarded the TPF Gold medal, the runner-up the TPF Silver medal, with an indefinite number of 'Highly commendeds' for those that didn't win, but tried hard.

In practice, the medals would just be certificates bearing an image of a medal, with permission to incorporate the image in the label artwork, should the producer wish to do so.

The important detail is that the exercise must be, (and seen to be) absolutely fair and impartial. We can reasonably expect samples to be free, but I would be firmly against an entrance fee.

I wonder if we could borrow the dining room in the Factory House to conduct the tastings??

Tom

uncle tom wrote:with an indefinite number of 'Highly commendeds' for those that didn't win, but tried hard.

An indefinite number suggests to a casual observer that they might be worthless. What about Gold, Silver, and Top Quartile?

jdaw1 wrote:

uncle tom wrote:with an indefinite number of 'Highly commendeds' for those that didn't win, but tried hard.

An indefinite number suggests to a casual observer that they might be worthless. What about Gold, Silver, and Top Quartile?

Gold
Silver
Top Quartile
Bottom quartile
Can't believe they call this port

Btw, if you were to award the ports.. would it be a group collective score? (avg of individual scores?)
Using the uncle tom rating ... Would you give the award based on how well it drinks now or later?
What if the wine might collectively receive a silver, but might grow up into a gold wine?

What if the wine might collectively receive a silver, but might grow up into a gold wine?

I'm thinking about those wines that will be mostly drunk soon after purchase, so the award should be focused on immediate gratification. I would expect the sample bottles to be mostly wines that the producer plans to release in the year ahead.

Although most non-vintage ports will improve given time, the reality is that few bottles get the chance, once released. The timing of the release is a compromise between quality, demand and capital tie-up.

A producer who waits longer than the competition before releasing his Crusted or unfiltered LBV improves his chances of getting an award, but if he has exhausted his stocks of older wine and has orders to fill, he may be tempted to release stock sooner than might be desirable.

If we think a wine is too young and raw to be rewarded, there's no reason why we shouldn't say so, and invite the producer to re-submit a bottle a year or two later.

Tom

One of my personal desires would be to see more good value unfiltered LBV produced. It would be great for that to be the norm. Why is it so difficult to find in mainstream off licences?!

They should also ship more of that stuff in the states.

Perhaps if we do start a TPF awards program, people would buy more port so us in the states could get more variety.

The challenge is likely to be convincing the port shippers that a TPF Gold Award will have sufficient commercial value for them to make the effort to submit samples. However, this would make for an interesting theme for a tasting one night - bring a bottle bought from a retailer in the last 2 weeks. The wines tasted would therefore be wines which were available relatively easily in the market and could be tasted and marked by the people attending.

After all, the my vague and passive memory of the collective notes we have on this site certainly influences my buying. For instance, I do not buy Taylor 2001 or Dow 2001 LBV unless these are very cheap.

That suggests price categories: £5·01 to £10, £10·01 to £15, etc.