The Decanter Awards are not open to the public or to the press, in short, I am a spy!

I am joking, I am a member of the staff so i can tell some curiosities.. and this is why I have written more than 1 article about this world wine competition. As promised in the first part of the article I am here to comment the results of the competition.

I wrote in the first story (read it here) Decanter is a monthly magazine of wines, liqueurs and spirits and since 2004 they have launched a wine contest that has become influential and prestigious. After having understood the process in the first article we can now make some comments on the long-awaited results (click here to read them) through the opinions of the experts involved and that I stuck in the corridors for an opinion.

Chiara Giorleo e Steven Spurrier

It is an event of enormous fluidity: the judges feel very comfortable, and it is exactly this spirit that Sarah Kemp, responsible for the entire organization wants. It is such a complex organization made ​​up of a very large staff and a big structure: “Tobacco Docks” behind the Tower Bridge, I walked with pleasure every morning (in spite of the fog of those days in May) also because of an underground strike. The location provided open space for logging, bar and dining room, wine storage and tasting rooms: the “studios” and finally, space for recycling (glass, cardboard and leftover wine unfortunatelly), anyway, I cannot deny that in the last days the staff have had the possibility to try the wines of concluded tasting’s sessions, yes, the ones still bagged we could finally discover!

Italian winners are varied: there are small and large wineries, family owned or business based, with absolutely territorial character or international fame, with or without deep historical roots and so on. Nice to have confirmation of big names such as Ricasoli (from Tuscany) or Quintodecimo (from Campania region) for example; intriguing to discover smaller wineries that offer quality wines: Terre Nobili (from Calabria Region) and Costarossa (Puglia region, in the south again) winning even the International Trophie as well as Rivetti & Lauro, who won well 2 awards with 2 different wines and on their website tell “the story of a dream”.

sarah kemp

So after so much effort, hard work and rivers of wine opened and sometimes replaced through an appropriate form (in case of defects), we can say that my impression I had on those days is probably true: the new world (countries which appeared recently in the wine world such as South Africa, Canada and even Argentina) have won more awards compared to Italy.

An Italian expert present at the competition as Ian d’Agata (director of Merano WineFestival held in autumn in the north of Italy) defines himself as strict and objective. Spurrier himself thinks that the new world needs these awards probably putting more effort in the selection of samples to be sent; on the contrary, the Italians, for example, probably do not need to be promoted through these initiatives.

Meanwhile we try to look for these labels to get an idea of the winners and try them with our friends.