Bob Campbell is one of only 264 Masters of Wine in the world. An international wine judge, Bob judges wine professionally in ten countries and contributes regularly to publications around the world. His specialty is New Zealand wine which he reviews from an international perspective.
Tri Nations Challenge – how it works
After the judging ... a beer. Judges James Halliday, Bob Campbell, Robert Joseph, Michael Fridjhon
The Tri-Nations Wine Challenge is a unique wine competition. It reviews the best wines of three countries; Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The wines are selected by a judge from each country:
Australia – James Halliday (wine critic and author)
Bob Campbell – wine critic and educator
Michael Fridjhon – wine critic, distributor and author
Although the class criteria can change from year to year, the 13 classes in 2008 were as follows:
Sparkling wine (7 per country)
Chardonnay (10)
Aromatic – mostly Riesling and Gewurztraminer (7)
Sauvignon Blanc and blends (10)
Other white wines (10)
Pinot Noir (7)
Merlot (7)
Shiraz/Syrah (10)
Cabernet Sauvignon (10)
Bordeaux blends (10)
Other red blends (10)
Other red varietals (10)
Dessert wines (7)
The chairman of judges is Robert Joseph, UK critic and author. Joseph was co-founder of the International Wine Challenge and Wine magazine (now Wine & Spirit) and is in hot demand as a speaker and wine taster internationally.
The four judges review each class of wine in a blind lineup of 21 or 30 wines. We choose our top seven wines and rank them by awarding 10 points for first, 7 for second, 5 for third and so on. Our scores are recorded to decide the first and second wine in each class and the country winner (highest points).
A trophy tasting of top wines in each class determines the winning white and red plus top wine overall. Results will be revealed in this blog in early November.
November 10th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Chardonnay (10)
Sauvignon Blanc and blends (10)
Shiraz/Syrah (10)
Bordeaux blends (10)
40 spots here and not a single wine from Te Mata Estate makes the cut? No Elston? No Coleraine? No Bullnose? No Cape Crest? Eye brows raised. Surely at least one of these wines makes top 10 status??
November 10th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Didnt James think Penfolds Grange was one of the top 10 Shiraz in Aussie?
November 11th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Craig, I’d love to have included Te Mata wines in my selection but they declined to be involved. It’s a bit like a top rugby player declining to play for the All Blacks. They’re one of the few (in fact one of the two) wineries who didn’t want to get involved. I can’t imaging why – fear of coming second is probably the reason.
Grange was also a non-participant.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Cool, I thought as much. I take it then that the wineries bear the costs (and benefits) of contesting?
Perhaps this needs explaining in the blurb of the competition as it reads as though it purely 100% the pick of the writers (which would be a dream scenerio)
Is the winner then the country that simply has the most top wineries willing to enter?
PS. Even considering what you have outlined above it is still a damn good NZ lineup – just a few obvious gaps (Te Mata, Felton Rd and Dry River front of mind)
January 29th, 2010 at 4:08 am
Thanks for publishing about this. There’s a mass of great tech info on the internet. You’ve got a lot of that info here on your site. I’m impressed – I try to keep a couple blogs reasonably up-to-date, but it’s a struggle sometimes. You’ve done a solid job with this one. How do you do it?