The Jimmy Watson is Australia's most prestigious wine award. It's for the wine judged to be the best dry red table wine from the vintage prior to the current vintage (i.e. last year). The judging occurs as part of of the much large Royal Melbourne Wine Show. Winemakers crave winning the Jimmy Watson – despite there being no cash reward and the trophy best described as less than attractive. The avalanche of publicity guarantees sales for the winner.
I went to a tasting this week featuring some of the entered wines for the Trophy. The wines were universally excellent – and in a first for the Trophy, the judges have moved to announcing a shortlist of wines before the actual winner is announced (next month). This is clever, as the Trophy gets so much coverage, the runners up – also superb wines – now get some publicity air time.
The Jimmy Watson Trophy process though remains mired in controversy,
The wines that are entered by winemakers are barely a year old – in most cases the wines that are submitted are samples from oak barrels, where the wines are still maturing. That means that by the time the winning wine is announced – the wine that will actually be blended, bottled and sold (and feature lots of PR about being the Trophy winner) may not be quite the same wine in composition and flavour profile as the one that was submitted for tasting. This offends the wine industry purists. I take the view that that it would be a very foolhardy winery that released a bottled Jimmy Watson Trophy winner that was different from the wine sample that was submitted and won the award.
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