MW symposium to test critics' taste buds
The world’s top wine critics will have their taste buds scientifically tested this summer at the four-yearly Institute of Masters of Wine Symposium.
Beverley Blanning MW is a London-based independent wine journalist and the author of Wine Tasting and Biodynamics in Wine. A feature writer and taster for Decanter – and a contributor to other publications around the world – Blanning has judged at numerous wine competitions internationally. She is also a presenter and educator for corporate, consumer and trade events. She was a judge at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2017, but she first judged the competition in 2004.
The world’s top wine critics will have their taste buds scientifically tested this summer at the four-yearly Institute of Masters of Wine Symposium.
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The old wine villages of Alsace have a timeless beauty. Immaculate streets, colourful, half-timbered houses and overflowing window boxes provide evidence of the region's long and illustrious history. Viticulture was well established here by the second century AD and today the region produces nearly 20% of all the still white wine in France. Yet in many ways, Alsace wines are still seen as wines for the connoisseur and are less well understood than the other classic wines from the rest of France.
Talk to any French winemaker and before long you're likely to hear the familiar grumbles about their lot. If it's not the weather, it's the unfair competition from New World wines robbing them of their market share or, failing that, the endless red tape that binds a country already hidebound by regulations. But a couple of hours south of Paris, in the ultra-traditional wine country of Chablis, there is an air of serenity. Producers have just enjoyed a near-perfect 2002 vintage and the wine is selling better than ever. In the words of winemaker Michel Laroche: 'In Chablis we have no reason to complain. Nobody's crying here.'
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