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Italy triumphs at World Tasting Championship
Italy won the World Tasting Championship for the first time, beating 38 other nations in the blind wine identification competition held in Bordeaux at the weekend.
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The 12th edition of the competition, organised by La Revue du Vin de France, was held at Château Dauzac in Margaux on Saturday.
Last year’s contest was won by Romania, and the year before that it was Team Luxembourg which came out on top.
The 2024 edition of the competition also marked the arrival of eight new national teams: Malta, Singapore, Ireland, Turkey, Belarus, Canada, Poland, Latvia and Hong Kong.
The 39 teams blind tasted a dozen wines – six white and six red – from around the world and were tasked with deducing certain facts about its identity. Answers were graded according to the following marking criteria:
“The main grape variety: it depends of the percentage of this grape in the wine. For instance, if you write Syrah, and there is 50% of Syrah in the wine, you score 5 points; if it’s 80% of Syrah you score 8 points. It’s 10 points for a correct single variety.
The country: 5 points
The correct appellation: 5 points.
Correct region: 4 points
The vintage: 3 points.”
Italy gained a total of 168 points, while Switzerland and Taiwan came in joint second with 140 each, just beating Team Japan, which had 138. Newcomer Latvia also performed remarkably well, gaining an impressive 136 points to come fourth.
It was on the eighth wine, a Tempranillo-forward 2019 from Ribera del Duero’s Vega Sicilia, that the Italian team, consisting of Miguel Angel Lopez, Clémence Barraud, Luis Alberto Villarreal and Andrea Podazza, reportedly took the lead. There were also two Italian wines in the lineup, a Soave (for the second year running) and a Barolo. Italy had come in eighth place in 2023, with Podazza, Villarreal, Lopez and coach Pierre-Yves Challier all returning for this year’s contest.
Meanwhile, Italy’s rivals from across the Alps, France, were not able to capitalise on their home advantage, falling to 28th place, with 91 points – a higher score than the 90 they received in 2023, though that took them to fourth spot. Great Britain meanwhile came in at 31st (from 16th last year), just beneath the all-female Kenyan team. Once again, Albania came in at the very bottom, with 33 points, an improvement on the 21 they earned last year.
The answers
The 12 wines that the contestants were asked to identify were as follows:
- Xarel-lo (65%) and Macabeo (35%), Spain, Corpinnat, Can Descregut, 2018
- Riesling, France, Alsace, Alsace Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim, Gustave Lorentz, 2019
- Sauvignon Blanc (90%) and Semillon (10%), New Zealand, Marlborough, Seresin Estate, 2022
- Garganega, Italy, Soave, Gini, 2020
- Riesling (late harvest), Germany, Mosel, Markus Molitor, 2018
- Gamay, France, Brouilly, Château de la Chaize, 2022
- Malbec, Argentina, Mendoza, Bodega Rolland, 2019
- Tempranillo (97%) and Merlot (3%), Spain, Ribera del Duero, Vega Sicilia, 2019
- Cabernet Sauvignon (65%) and Syrah (35%), Lebanon, Beqaa Valley, Château Kefraya, 2019
- Nebbiolio, Italy, Barolo, Giacomo Borgogno, 2020
- Mourvedre (95%) and Grenache (5%), France, Bandol, Domaine de La Bégude, 2006
- Savagnin, France, Côtes du Jura, Domaine Sainte-Marie, 2011
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