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 Concours Mondial de Bruxelles is one of the biggest wine competitions under the tutelage of OIV of which India is a member. It is also perhaps the only wine competition in the world where the venue shifts every year to a new country, announced on the last day of the competition. Held annually in Belgium since 1994, the Competition has been on tour since 2006 when it was taken to Lisbon. I had joined it in 2009 when it was held in Valencia and have participated as a judge since then at Palermo, Luxembourg, Guimarães (Portugal) and Bratislava (Slovakia) last year. For its 20th anniversary, the competition decided to return to the native city of Bruxelles (Brussels) in Belgium.
Inaugurating the competition at the Brussels Expo, Baudouin Havaux announced that a record number of 8750 samples had been received including some spirits. The number of wines entered seemed to be more or less the same as last year-still an enviable situation since many of the past participating countries like Switzerland and Luxembourg were not able to send the usual high numbers. France was the leader as expected with 2428 entries with Spain (1615), Italy (1153) and Portugal (965) being the entrants from the Old World. Chile led the New World entries (365).
An interesting part of the inauguration was the address by Mr. Didier Reynders, Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister who said that he had given instruction to all the Belgium embassies in the world to serve only wines produced in Belgium which is not known to make a large number of wines. Knowing this limitation, he added that wines produced anywhere in the world by a Belgian citizen would also be accorded the same status-quite a contrast with the treatment meted out to the domestic wine industry in India and wines in general by the politicians.
Tasting and Testing
Each panel of 6 jurors is given a maximum of 50 wines in a day in conjunction with the OIV directives at this competition. The 100-point scale based on sight, smell and taste entitles a wine with 83 points to earn a silver medal whereas 87 points would win a Gold medal. The rare wines with 92 points earn a Great Gold. Every day starts with a couple of calibration wines which are the same for all the jurors after a panel of experts has pre-tasted them. This is to help calibrate the scores of diverse panels. Only the vintage is disclosed to tasters- no information about the varietals or the region is indicated.
Consistency of Results
Ask anyone about the inconsistency arising out of different people rating wine and you may consume bottles of wine discussing and arguing about the subject. It is difficult to expect consensus on the merits of such competitions and the consistency of results but as Thomas Costenoble, Director of the competition since 1995 would tell you, they strive to make it as reliable as humanly possible. Besides getting a jury of around 310 independent wine professionals from 51 countries this year and giving it an international slant, the organizers have been working with a University to statistically correlate the scores of all the panels and tastes within the same panel and improve the reliability of the competition.
 What keeps the tasters on their toes is the policy of serving a couple or more of same wines every day. Although Thomas insisted that it was not to track the performance of the judges but improve reliability of the scores, there is always some speculation that it might have something to do with a few judges not invited the next year. New experiments were conducted this year as a part of the statistical analyses. Some panels tasted same wines in different order while others tasted in the same flight to judge the uniformity and consistency of each panel.
Although the judges are not allowed to talk to each other or discuss the scores of any wine (unlike most competitions in Australia, USA, Hong Kong etc.), they are given a list with details of the producers and the wines at the end of each session under an explicit oath of secrecy and non-disclosure. This does generate animated discussions in the pre-lunch sessions after the tasting is over and are quite useful for the judges as a learning experience and to help them compare their scores with the fellow judges.
The competition is very professionally managed and with over 300 judges sitting and tasting in a huge hall, it was heartening to see the band of students from the local hotelier institute handling the wine service so flawlessly. Although the Competition had the advantage of being on the home ground, Baudouin feels it is well worth shifting to different venues for the judges who come back refreshed every year and do not feel jaded with the same venue year after year.
The number of wine samples submitted was practically the same as last year. When I asked Baudouin if he had his sights on 10,000 he smiled and said he would be happy to see them reach the number one day but that the further growth was difficult at the earlier pace, adding that they were enjoying the competition with the present number.
Thanks to the thorough record keeping of the wines entered, it appears that the average alcohol level of the wines entered has plateaued at 13.13% after several years of constant increase from 12.8% in 2000 to 13.09% in 2006 and 13.32% in 2013. The competition also reflects that wines are gradually trading up with about a third of the wines entered being worth more than € 8.5.
 That the competition has a vast majority of the wines from the Old World was obvious from the number of corks and screw-caps displayed in transparent plastic containers. About 80% closures were natural corks with the rest divided between synthetic corks and screw-caps. Though the number of second bottles requested and the cork-tainted bottles is disclosed in November, Carlos de Jesus, Communications Director of Amorim, the mega-producer of corks in Portugal, says the number is similar to the previous years and many of the second bottles (expected to be less than 3%) are not because of cork taints but other defects.
The results will be announced on Monday 12th May. Thomas also announced the next year’s venue as Jesolo, a small touristy town near Venice, on May 1-3, 2015. As Louis Havaux, the originator of Concours Mondial de Bruxelles points out, the competition has now become a huge social club with 350 members. It shows how much wine brings different nationalities together – instant friendship emerges when people are gathered around a bottle of wine. And so the club members will congregate once again next May 1-this time in Italy.
Arrivederci and Ci Vediamo!
Subhash Arora
Tags: Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, Brussels, OIV, Belgium, Baudouin Havaux, Thomas Costenoble, Jesolo, Louis Havaux |