The Decanter Awards 2012

It's a nice time to spend a few days in London. The city is bustling with activity for the upcoming Olympics with work going on everywhere as everyone strives to meet their deadlines, or at least come within a week of them. This is how it should be but unfortunately is not, even in Italy. For me it was especially nice because, for the second year in a row, I was invited by the magazine Decanter to be one of the judges assigning its Decanter Awards 2012, one of the most prestigious wine contests in the world. The wines competing came from all over the globe and specific committees were set up for every zone. There were three for Spain, a dozen or so for France, two each for South Africa and Australia, and I think the United States, and even eight for Italy. There were also three 'Chairmen', all Masters of Wine: Richard Baudains, Rosemary George and Jane Hunt. Plus there was a 'mega director', more for his authoritativeness than for the official title, who was the legendary Steven Spurrier. All the bottles strictly had their labels hidden and for each group all that was known was the type of wine, vintage, alcoholic content and, but not in all cases, some minor information like the sugar residue and acidic level. Not even at the end of the five-day tasting - from Monday, April 23 to Friday, April 27 – was it possible to have any anticipation or leak on which wines had won the 'Gold Awards', the highest prize. The committees were made up of experts from around the world, sommeliers from multi-star restaurants, like Le Calandre or London's River Café . All in all there were some 40 panels made up of three or four components. The only Italian critics taking part were yours truly and Ian D'Agata, who has collaborated with Decanter for years but who was also among my collaborators when I was at Gambero Rosso. Five days of hard, serious work, carried out by competent people, with all opinions taken equally into consideration in an atmosphere that was more like a British college campus than a bureaucratic contest. Why am I telling you all this? Because we could never have something like this in Italy. We are the only country in the world where to be official a wine contest has to involve the Associazione Enologi Italiani (Italian Winemaking Association) that, by law, has the right to appoint three or four of its experts to every panel of five persons, in other words the absolute majority. Forget me, what this means is that even Steven Spurrier, or any Wine Master, the likes of Parker, Robinson or Michel Bettane, critics known throughout the world and whose competence is undeniable, can only participate if they are under the tutelage of the Association and placed in a numeric minority. The reason for this, according to the Association bigwigs, is because wine-makers are the only people capable of judging a wine adequately. By the same token then only gynecologists and andrologists, perhaps even midwives, should tell us where, when and who to fall in love with, or only dieticians should advise us which restaurants to go to. I do not want to preach but would like to suggest that Giuseppe Martelli, an intelligent man and president of the Associazione Enologi, consider one thing. There are three or four contests involving Italian wines that still have a certain influence on the market and among wine-lovers: points awarded by Parker and Wine Spectator, by Decanter, the Three Glasses of Gambero Rosso and Bibenda's Five Grape Bunches. No one has ever given a award to the Associazione Enologi. Why is that? We quietly wait for an answer.