This week I tried to expand my wine knowledge by pouring over 150 glasses of a whole host of wines at the Melbourne Wine Show, in just one day. I wasn't judging, there's a lot of hoops to jump through before they let someone like me loose in there, but nonetheless I got a free apron, lunch, and keep cup, as was on my way.
Now it's a pretty cool process, there's a big room, with lots of white tables, a metric sh1t tonne of glasses, some really serious stewards, awesome down to earth judges and me. Oh and this cellar out the back, which nobody, except the really really important people can go into, of about 18,000 bottles of wine.
There was loads of swirling, a fair bit of sniffing and a lot of very bloody impressive spitting into garbage bins full of saw dust. Then they'd all get together and decide who got the Gold, Silver and Bronze. Pretty straight forward, really, until you're faced with over 75 odd glasses of Shiraz, before 9.30am, glad I was on the other side of the table!
Results will be out soon and I imagine there will be some really happy people, especially those who got to enter the exceptional colourful classes, of which I've included a photo below.
Naturally after one day I'm an expert and my tip on the shelf, just check what show they won their medal in, because if it was Melbourne, grab it, I'm certain you'll love it.