Be suspicious...
Be suspicious...be very suspicious of prize-winning wines...
"....what nobody bothers to tell wine drinkers is that the big gong-giving publications - notably Decanter and Wine International - which scatter medals like confetti are actually making quite a bit of money in the process. Tasting competition fees range from about £75 to £120 per bottle and with as many as 9,000 bottles entered per annum, a staggering 2/3 of which receive a gong...those publications are making more money from running contests than they are from selling their magazines." Jane MacQuitty, wine correspondent for The Times, Friday 10 November, 2006
Cento per Cento's view - "We don't usually enter our wines for these competitions because they are really marketing tools for volume vendors trying to shift big quantities of mostly forgettable wines. Since the majority of all wines entered obtain awards of some sort, these schemes are inherently misleading to consumers and stifle diversity in the market. Don't let apparently objective wine journalists - who are frequently bribed by one method or another by the big producers and importers - tell you what to drink. We like our customers to decide for themselves."
Cento per Cento - 100% independent, 100% Italian provincial.
Article created on: 24 Dec 2006
