MENTION of "The Challenge" in the wine world used to signal some discussion about how the embattled French might get their own back on the Aussies or how your local wine merchant could survive the onslaught from the supermarket up the road. It's changing, I notice. The Challenge is now the International Wine Challenge - the biggest and most influential wine competition of them all. The results of this year's monster blind sampling of 6,500 wines from 33 countries by 350 tasters have just been announced in the October issue of Wine magazine.
The world has gone awards crazy. Every year, it seems, there's more hullaballoo about Oscars and Best Dressed Lists, Egon Ronay and the Booker. It's difficult not to be slightly cynical about them all - to see them as marketing jamborees which would never have acquired a quarter of their clout if we, the pathetically impressionable public, didn't cling so cravenly to their judgments. In the case of the Wine Challenge, it's particularly easy to be cowed by the verdicts of so many experts. Don't be. Peruse the lists of winners by all means and sample away, but form your own opinion.
It's a well known fact that some wines that do well in competitions are much less seductive when you set out to drink a few glasses, rather than assess them in a mouthwash sort of way. It's also worth remembering that one of the great things about wine is that individual taste overrides all the absolutes. One man's Moet is another man's Pol Roger. I say this having just sampled a few gold and silver medal winners that I would never wish to encounter again, even if I drink to be a hundred.
Now, with that splenetic little warning out of the way, on to the positive aspects of the Challenge for consumers. The main one, I think, is that the competition inevitably draws attention to inexpensive wines of quality. After the three rigorous rounds of tasting required to select 1,750 medal winners, humble bottles can win their way through to glory as readily as some of the most famous wines in the world.
It's no surprise, this year, to see Dom Perignon, Chateau Lynch Bages, Chateau l'Angelus and Robert Mondavi's Opus One up near the top of the listings (again). Equally, if you've ever had so much as a mouthful of the dazzling Alsace wines of Zind Humbrecht, you'll hardly be shocked to find Olivier Humbrecht voted White Win Maker of the Year. The same is true of the Red Wine Maker of the Year, Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards in California, whose wines caused such a stir at James Nicholson's tasting in Dublin the other week.
No, the main intrigue is in the everyday drinking department. It's there that I've concentrated my own tasting activity in the past week, choosing some of the best bargains for the list below. With one exception, I've kept to the trophy and gold and silver medal winners: since there are hundreds of these it seems rather pointless to trawl for star performers in the bulging ranks of bronze medallists and commendations.
The net result is a tiny shortlist, all the same, from a competition so comprehensive in its range that it takes days to digest the results in print, never mind as liquid. It must also be noted that, with every year that passes (12 to date), more and more of the honoured wines are available in Ireland. Maybe, in other words, you'd be well advised to seek out the gold backed October issue of Wine. It's £3.75 sterling, from leading newsagents and some wine shops. Now look what's happened! I've ended up on the side of the slick marketing people.