From the NY Cork Report

Quote:
It's official. We are done judging big, blind, medal-focused wine competitions.

We did not arrive at this position without much thought and discussion. Ultimately, we believe that transparency and clarity are core values that should permeate the wine world -- from the creation of wine, to the marketing of wine, to the writing about wine.

Everything that happens in those areas should relate in some way to answering this question: Is this providing more transparency and clarity to the consumer, or less?

We have decided that medal-focused competitions provide less clarity and transparency to the wine consumer. We feel that medals only confuse consumers instead of educating them, and that they provide little real value.

Our position going forward will be simple: The editors and writers at the New York Cork Report will not accept invitations to judge wines at large-scale, blind-tasting events with the goal to hand out "medals" to "winning" wineries.

We want to explain, and -- this is vitally important -- we mean no disrespect.

The vast, vast majority of competition creators, organizers and judges perform their roles with the best of intentions. Often, we find that the wines we think are best are the ones that win top honors. Anthony Road Wine Company's 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling winning the Governor's Cup is one example).

But that cannot and does not change the reality: There are so many medal-awarding competitions that the events have lost any sense of meaning to the average consumer, and even wine-loving consumers can't possibly know the significance of a single bronze or silver or gold medal awarded at the many, many events. Furthermore, the very act of blind judging a wide range of wines should be viewed as a parlor game and not some official declaration of merit..... (more in the link)

full blog post here
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