It’s not the typical nine-to-five job, but the expert judges at the Illinois State Fair wine competition answered the call to taste and judge wine, hosted at the University this week.
“People usually say how nice of a job it must be to drink all day,” Glenn Bardgett, a judge from St. Louis, said. “People don’t realize how grueling it can be.”
The University hosted the competition, which concludes Wednesday at Bevier Hall after two days of judging Monday and Tuesday.
“We don’t have the competition at the state fair because it tends to smell like a competition of a barnyard and fried food,” enologist Brad Beam said. “We have a controlled environment and do it ahead of time.”
It is necessary to have the judging in a controlled environment as aroma, along with visual, palette and finish need to be separate from outside effects, he said.
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The judges use the Davis 20-point scale to determine quality and have either a background in viticulture or enology or are commercial makers, retailers and enthusiastic consumers.
“We really look for inherent qualities,” Beam said. “You still have the same evaluation schematic to accurately evaluate it.”
“It’s kind of a gift,” Michael Anthony, a judge from Chicago added. “Some people have it, and some people don’t.”
The first day consisted of 127 wines from amateurs and the second included the rest of the 280 entries from about half of the 80 established wineries from all around the state.
Adam Austin, a volunteer for the event, said the varieties were “everything you could imagine.”
“You’ll see a number of varietals that you won’t see from big time wineries,” Austin said. “We have zinfandel and cabernet sauvignon, but also some exotic fruits like pineapple as well.”
The volunteers roll out a cart with a coded system of wines to a group of four of the 12 judges for judging. They know the type of wine it is entered as but do not know the maker of the wine.
The judges then give a score to each wine in a category and then are able to determine the winner of that category.
A gold, silver and bronze medal will be given out to the top wines in each category, but only one can be the winner of the competition.
On Wednesday, the judges will try the top wines from each category to determine which one is best in show.
The results will be announced Wednesday and can be found at Illinoiswine.org.
