Nov 04: Grover Zampa Vineyards, India’s second largest wine producer, has bagged 9 medals at the seventh edition of Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2018 including 2 silvers, taking its tally to 120 since 2013, followed by the third largest producer, Fratelli winning 4 recognitions including a Silver, and the relatively new kid on the block, Soma Vineyards bagging 2 recognitions, with Gold eluding India yet again
Of the distinguishable awards, Grover Zampa Vineyards has been presented a silver medal for Art Collection Sauvignon Blanc and Soiree Brut Rose and four bronze medals for Vijay Amritraj Red, Soirée Brut Rosé, La Reserve’ Blanc and Art Collection Chenin Blanc respectively. Further, the brand has also been extensively ‘Commended’ for 3 labels. According to the company, 13 of the wines in its portfolio have won some medals by now.
The appreciation earned by the wines expresses the uniqueness in the winemaking process of Grover Zampa Vineyards. These awards are an indicator of the consumers’ preference for premium wines in the Asian market. With the current booty, Grover Zampa has bagged 120 Awards since 2013 after amalgamation of Grover Vineyards with Zampa and when the then CEO Sumedh Singh Mandla, realizing the potential benefits of the Awards, started participating seriously in the international wine competitions. Today Grover Zampa is way ahead of the other producers in the total tally-they have perhaps more awards in their basket than the other producers in the Top Three bracket-Sula and Fratelli.
Fratelli won 4 Awards, including a Silver for Sauvignon Blan. J’NOON red, the super deluxe wine bagged a ‘Commendation’ as did Sette. Classic Chenin also received the same Award.
Soma Vineyards which won 2 Awards this year had won a Bronze for its Chenin Blanc Gold in 2015 for its very first vintage 2014. Gold indicates lower residual sugar than the Silver. Last year India did the best with 20 medals won- when Soma had won 3 Awards including a Silver for its Sparkling Gold.
Wines are organised for tasting by country, region, colour, grape, style and vintage to ensure that they are judged in flights against their peers. Medal categories correspond to the 100-point scoring system used in most international wine competitions Besides the Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, several wines are given the ‘Commendation’- a category slightly lower than the Bronze.
After competing for bronze, silver, and gold medals, the gold medal winners are re-grouped by grape or style and re-tasted by a panel consisting of the 6 vice-chairs. The wines are judged according to their origin and the judges are aware of countries, regions, sub-regions, grapes and vintage.
The Decanter Asia Wine Awards in its seventh year was open to wines from around the world and is judged by Asia's prominent wine experts, with 50 judges including Masters of Wine like Sarah Jane Evans, Jeannie Cho Lee and Michael Hill Smith judged the 3138 wines over 4 days. A notable absence was that of Gerard Basset, MW who has been the Vice-Chair for several years and was not present due to health reasons, as was the Chair-person Steven Spurrier.
This year the chairmanship was shared between six top wine experts. Last year’s vice-chairs of Li Demei, Andrew Jefford, Michael Hill-Smith MW and Poh Tiong Ch’ng were joined by Sarah Jane Evans MW and Jeannie Cho Lee MW to oversee the DAWA 2018, according to Decanter. Li Demei, who has been judging at DAWA since 2014 says, ‘there is no question that the quality of wines being entered continues to get better’.
For all results at DAWA for 2018 and earlier years, please visit: http://awards.decanter.com
Subhash Arora
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