Best in Taste Wine Awards

On Wednesday evening at the VIP Taste of London Secret Garden Party I announced the winners of the inaugural Best in Taste Wine Awards sponsored by Blue Tomato magazine.
This competition was open to all the wine exhibitors and producers at Taste of London. We decided to have three fun wine categories: Taste of Summer Wine Award, Foodies Wine Award and Indulgence Wine Award. I enlisted the help of Mickey Narea, sommelier at Launceston Place, Denise Medrano The Wine Sleuth and Roberto Della Pietra, sommelier at Gauthier for the judging.
In order to taste the eighty wines entered, we set aside three hours for our blind tasting – this is the correct way to judge wines by covering the bottles. Each of the wines were then marked out of 20. We then agreed on a shortlist of three wines per category. Our Foodies Wine Award shortlist revealed diversity, with Pizzato Concentus 2005 – a Brazilian red made from Cabernet Sauvignon Tannat and Merlot – gaining a place, whilst a silky, smooth red from Portugal named Zimbro Douro 2006 made it to the Taste of Summer Wine Award shortlist and the Reserva Malbec 2008 from Norton Argentina was a contender for the Indulgence Wine Award . The trophy winners were:
Best in Taste Wine Awards
Taste of Summer Wine Award – Prosecco Riccardo NV, Italy.
Stand:Harmonicande Vintners.
A superb, crowd pleasing bubbly.
Foodies Wine Award – Gran Feudo Edición Chardonnay 2008, Bodegas Chivite, Spain.
Stand: Chivite.
Classy, well structured, foodie match wine.
Indulgence Wine Award – Felsina Vin Santo 2001, Italy.
Stand: Design Wine.
Delicate, exotic with balanced sweetness.
See you at the show.