
By Kit Fennessy
I HAVE long had a predilection for fine wine. Much in the way of Winston Churchill, “my tastes are simple, all I need is the best.”
Unfortunately, I have found myself limited in a financial sense: in-so-far as I cannot afford the best at all times. One cannot always drink champagne on a beer budget. I have been known to slum it, like Rumpole of the Bailey, downgrading my tup to the level of Chateau Fleet Street:
I HAVE long had a predilection for fine wine. Much in the way of Winston Churchill, “my tastes are simple, all I need is the best.”
Unfortunately, I have found myself limited in a financial sense: in-so-far as I cannot afford the best at all times. One cannot always drink champagne on a beer budget. I have been known to slum it, like Rumpole of the Bailey, downgrading my tup to the level of Chateau Fleet Street:
Horace Rumpole : Of course, there is another reason why I drink Pomeroy's plonk. Not to put too fine a point on it, if you drink enough of this stuff, you stand a good chance of getting blotto. Claude Erskine-Brown : [horrified] Horace! Good heavens! The purpose of wine is not to get you blotto. Horace Rumpole : You astonish me. Claude Erskine-Brown : It's to taste sunlight trapped in a glass. To remember some green slope in Burgundy, or a village by the Gironde. Horace Rumpole : I dare say there is a patch of barren soil in some corner of a foreign field where the Fleet Street grapes struggle for existence. Probably somewhere between a cow-shed and a pissoir. |
Despite my millionaire tastes and humble means, I have found a terrific loophole to access the world of wine and try the very best – if only in fits and starts. That loophole is, in two words, “wine shows”.
I’m fortunate enough to have the acquaintance of a significant wine maker in the region, who has allowed me to attend the Royal Melbourne Wine Show a couple of times. This show features over 3000 wines, some of them worth a small fortune. I recently attended the more boutique yet lovely Gippsland wine show, the judging of which took place 150 metres from my front door at the Cape Paterson Surf Life Saving Club.
I’m fortunate enough to have the acquaintance of a significant wine maker in the region, who has allowed me to attend the Royal Melbourne Wine Show a couple of times. This show features over 3000 wines, some of them worth a small fortune. I recently attended the more boutique yet lovely Gippsland wine show, the judging of which took place 150 metres from my front door at the Cape Paterson Surf Life Saving Club.

There were over 114 entries this year from 20 wineries across Gippsland from as far apart as Phillip Island to Lakes Entrance (300 km).
“Gippsland excels in cool climate varietals like pinot noir, chardonnay, a cheeky little riesling and the odd surprisingly good sparkling wine,” international wine writer and Halliday Gippsland Region expert Jane Faulkner told me as I sat down to interview the judges under the guise of being a freelance journalist. “It’s great to get a snapshot of all the vintages, and what’s happening across the region, where things are at. When we judge, we’re looking for joy in the wines.”
Some of Australia’s best wine tasters were on the judging panel. In addition to Jane Faulkner, there was the chair Sarah Fagan (Tarrawarra’s chief wine maker), Julian Grounds (Stonier Wines, Mornington Peninsula), Dom Kearton (Purple Hen, Phillip Island) and Frank Butera (from Bass River Winery).
“Judging requires a lot of expertise,” Dom said, “but the hardest bit is making sure you get the right wine in the right glass. Otherwise it’s a nightmare. That’s where Frank comes in with the logistics.”
The nightmare is caused by blind tasting (and I shall forgo the obvious quips…). Chief wine steward Frank Butera explained: “We blind taste the wines so we don’t know which is which, and judge each on its merits. The wineries enter online through software supplied by the Australian Wine Research Institute, which gives the wine a number and class that follows the bottle to the comp.
“Gippsland excels in cool climate varietals like pinot noir, chardonnay, a cheeky little riesling and the odd surprisingly good sparkling wine,” international wine writer and Halliday Gippsland Region expert Jane Faulkner told me as I sat down to interview the judges under the guise of being a freelance journalist. “It’s great to get a snapshot of all the vintages, and what’s happening across the region, where things are at. When we judge, we’re looking for joy in the wines.”
Some of Australia’s best wine tasters were on the judging panel. In addition to Jane Faulkner, there was the chair Sarah Fagan (Tarrawarra’s chief wine maker), Julian Grounds (Stonier Wines, Mornington Peninsula), Dom Kearton (Purple Hen, Phillip Island) and Frank Butera (from Bass River Winery).
“Judging requires a lot of expertise,” Dom said, “but the hardest bit is making sure you get the right wine in the right glass. Otherwise it’s a nightmare. That’s where Frank comes in with the logistics.”
The nightmare is caused by blind tasting (and I shall forgo the obvious quips…). Chief wine steward Frank Butera explained: “We blind taste the wines so we don’t know which is which, and judge each on its merits. The wineries enter online through software supplied by the Australian Wine Research Institute, which gives the wine a number and class that follows the bottle to the comp.
“We put our judgements in the software with no discussion, and after the adjudications are lodged we might have a second round if there’s more than one gold in a class.”
A gold is not a trophy they hang on a bottle, but a score: 95 or higher out of 100. I asked about the parameters of the numbering process. Julian said it had to do with “harmony, balance and length”. "You’re looking for the weight of the fruit. All the components need to be seamless. We can all recognise gold medal wines. So from there, you are looking for what is poking out, and then deducting points." If there is more than one gold in a category, the best of the best are randomised out in the back room and resubmitted for tasting. “As a judge, that’s the really exciting bit,” Jane said. ‘You do quite a bit of work to find the best of the best, and then you get to re-compare the very best, which is thrilling. You know you are getting to try only the great wines.” |
Results of the judging will be revealed at the 2024 Westpac Gippsland Wine Show awards tasting and dinner on Thursday 17th October at Carrajung Estate, near Traralgon. Tickets are available at Trybooking or www.winegippsland.com. Tickets are also available for the bus running from Bass Coast (Cowes and Anderson) to the venue and return. |
I visited on the second day of judging which is a much more arduous task than it might sound.
On Sunday afternoon, they had tasted the rosé, sauvignon blanc, cabernet, other reds and their blends, and provenance wines. I was struck by “provenance wines”, a category I’d not heard of before, and had to admit my ignorance. So I asked: ‘What is provenance?’
On Sunday afternoon, they had tasted the rosé, sauvignon blanc, cabernet, other reds and their blends, and provenance wines. I was struck by “provenance wines”, a category I’d not heard of before, and had to admit my ignorance. So I asked: ‘What is provenance?’

“A LOT of glasses,” was the tongue-in-cheek reply.
In this category a winery submits three wines of the same type, from the same label, from different years within a five year split between vintages. There were 20 entries in Wines of Provenance, which required 300 glasses to be poured for just that one class. What the judges are looking for is not only consistency but to see if there’s an identity being developed by a winery, a commonality that threads all of the vintages together – much more than showing off how the wines age.
One of the judges opined that it should be the highest accolade, better than “the best wine in show”, because it shows off that producer, that place, and it’s not just consistency but all three need to be very good wines indeed.
I observed that Dirty Three wines (Inverloch) must be doing something right, because they won both best wine in show and the provenance award last year, and the whole table agreed that their wine maker Marcus is a bit of a rock star: coming to be known as the Jo Marsh (of Billy Button fame) of the South.
While I was there, there were 13 chardonnays for them to taste and compare, a very serious and concentrated business which did not permit for conversation or noise. It was like going to a church or chapel, a temple to wine, which even the shutter noise of my camera seemed a little too much for.
Wine judging is a serious business. Awards can be lucrative for winners, so there needs to be no question of influence either in knowledge of the wine maker, or in distraction for these very knowledgeable experts. Of course the judges’ palates get tired, or jaded, and there is no cure for this except a break between classes.
When I left them, they had two more classes to work their way through, and one of the judges said they couldn’t wait to get to the end so they could have a beer.
So it turns out even wine judges – positively drowning in the stuff – need to have a beer budget too. I left feeling much better about my situation…
In this category a winery submits three wines of the same type, from the same label, from different years within a five year split between vintages. There were 20 entries in Wines of Provenance, which required 300 glasses to be poured for just that one class. What the judges are looking for is not only consistency but to see if there’s an identity being developed by a winery, a commonality that threads all of the vintages together – much more than showing off how the wines age.
One of the judges opined that it should be the highest accolade, better than “the best wine in show”, because it shows off that producer, that place, and it’s not just consistency but all three need to be very good wines indeed.
I observed that Dirty Three wines (Inverloch) must be doing something right, because they won both best wine in show and the provenance award last year, and the whole table agreed that their wine maker Marcus is a bit of a rock star: coming to be known as the Jo Marsh (of Billy Button fame) of the South.
While I was there, there were 13 chardonnays for them to taste and compare, a very serious and concentrated business which did not permit for conversation or noise. It was like going to a church or chapel, a temple to wine, which even the shutter noise of my camera seemed a little too much for.
Wine judging is a serious business. Awards can be lucrative for winners, so there needs to be no question of influence either in knowledge of the wine maker, or in distraction for these very knowledgeable experts. Of course the judges’ palates get tired, or jaded, and there is no cure for this except a break between classes.
When I left them, they had two more classes to work their way through, and one of the judges said they couldn’t wait to get to the end so they could have a beer.
So it turns out even wine judges – positively drowning in the stuff – need to have a beer budget too. I left feeling much better about my situation…