Webb eats, drinks & judges at SIWC 17 August 2006

Unique Sydney wine competition

Thelema’s Gyles Webb is joining the line up of 13 judges from Argentina, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Ireland, the UK and the USA as South African representative for the upcoming 2007 Sydney International Wine Competition.

Entries for this unusual competition – at which wines are judges together with food pairings – close on September 9. Because of interest, the organisers have capped entries at 2000 wines, which mainly come from Australia and New Zealand but also a handful of other countries.

Judging will take place over five days in October. Judges allocate wines to various style categories, based on palate weight and texture, or mouth-feel. Wines are assessed in groups of around 40, until judges agree on the top 20 per cent. The top wines are finally judged with food.

SIWC claims that judging wines alongside appropriate food yields very different results to those of conventional wine shows and ‘over 25 years the SIWC has established itself as a reliable guide to wines that work well where it counts: at the table’.

The judges are led by Master of Wine Kym Milne. Norma Ratcliffe of Warwick Estate was last year’s South African judge.