The National Wine Show: Diary of a First-time Steward
© Brian Handreck (aka Red Bigot) 2006
For many years I paid for entry to
the Public Tasting after the National Wine Show, and then cadged tickets to the
invitation-only
Pre-Show
When caught up in the hectic period
of the actual show week, it’s easy to forget the huge amount of sustained organisation
work that precedes the show. The work includes soliciting entries, travel to
check eligibility (medals claimed, quantity of stock etc), picking up check
samples, arranging judges, booking the entries in, etc, etc. Many of the show committee and administrative
staff have been involved with the show for many years, but there is still a
huge effort involved in coordinating the event.
There are about 1,500 entries in 71
classes. In many classes, to be eligible
for entry, the wine must have won a medal at another recognised wine show. In some classes they must have won Gold or Silver, in the four special varietal
Trophy classes (Chardonnay, Semillon,
The
Day minus 2 - Saturday Setup – 0700 start
Early on Saturday morning, the
stewards gather to get things started before being joined by a horde of
additional volunteers. Some of the team
have come from interstate; you don’t easily give up your place on the team,
even if you have moved interstate. The
first task is to erect the wine tables and place them in long straight rows
ready for placement of the bottles. The judging tables, stewards’ tables, and screens
are unpacked and assembled. The more
experienced stewards calculate the positioning of the judging tables, using
esoteric markings on the carpet tiles and allowing for lighting shadows.
The boxed entries arrive on pallets
delivered by fork-lift. The hordes of volunteers descend like ants, rip off the
plastic wrapping and place boxes on hand carts. They check that the class numbers of
selected boxes are reasonably close to each other to minimise movement around
the hall. The class identifiers together
with numbered strips of paper have already been placed on the tables by another
team. Each bottle has the class and sequence number on a stick-on show label,
so the job is easy, but becomes tedious after a while.
Judging tables, steward tables and show
entries in the background.
The day is punctuated by a hearty
lunch for stewards and volunteers, the workers are well fed in this
organisation.
After the unpacking is finished, the
stewards pass through the full 5,500+ bottles twice. The first time is to check
that the Class and sequence number matches the placement position. The second pass
is to check that all bottles in the set match, and are the correct vintage. A number of discrepancies were found,
including one bottle of a different vintage in a set of 4 bottles.
Day minus 1 - Sunday
There are less people around today,
the main task is to check all the bottles against the schedule of entries and
this is done in pairs. Where there are
commercial labels on the wines, the description/varieties are checked as
well. There are numerous small changes
made to update the schedule so that wines are unambiguously identified. We
found one producer had supplied the wrong vintage of a red in a single-vintage
class. Despite the two previous checks a
white wine was found misplaced in a red class.
All told I think I physically handled about
half of the 5,500+ bottles submitted as show samples.
After another catered lunch accompanied
by a few wines from the previous year’s show, the smaller group of participants
got the final preparations under way.
This involved checking the schedule for Day 1, putting out the scoring
sheets, pencils, notepads etc for the judges, placing glasses for the first
judging classes for the 4 panels (each having 3 judges and 2 associates),
picking out the wines for the Monday morning classes, and lining them up on the
stewards tables located behind screens that separate the judging tables.
Day 1 – Monday 0730 start
We complete the checking of the
first class, then put out 2 water bottles (1 still and 1 sparkling) and a plate
of biscuits, cheese and olives for each judge. The wines are poured just prior
to the arrival of the judges at about
Pours from second bottles are done where faults are perceived (usually TCA or Random Oxidation; normally they don’t re-check where an offensive level of brett is identified). In two white classes of 30-40 wines there are in each only 3 wines sealed with cork. In each of these classes the first bottle of one of these 3 wines was tainted! However one of these wines went on to win a Top gold from the second sample and I think a trophy with a third bottle.
When the judges finish,
they retire to a communal panel table, and work through their scores to
identify potential gold medal wines, the chairman noting each judge's score
(including the 2 associates) on his scoring sheet and totalling the 3 judges
scores. (These sheets are analysed after the
show to see how associates scored in comparison to the regular judges.) The
stewards then receive the list of wine numbers for re-pours of the potential
gold medal wines and the judges re-taste them together, usually calling the
Chairman (James Halliday) for his opinion as well on the final set of candidate
Gold medals. The stewards sometimes have time to listen in
to these discussions and even discretely “look at” (behind the screens) some of
the wines being discussed, very educational.
The stewards clear the glasses as
soon as the last judge has retired to the communal table, and setup the glasses
for the next class, pouring the wines while the judges are re-assessing the top
wines. This cycle continues though
during the day; with 3-5 classes usually 1-2 quite large, this makes the long
mornings very busy. A lesser number of generally smaller classes are judged in the afternoon. A few selected open sample bottles are taken
over to the lunch; the judges usually don’t imbibe, but some of the stewards
have a small glass or two with lunch.
When the last class of the day is
completed, we clean-up, emptying spit buckets and replacing the liner/kitty
litter, wiping tables, and pick the next morning’s wines. The judges raid the fridge for the selection
of cleansing ales and head off to prepare for their night of fine food and
wine; some of the wines they’ve brought look pretty interesting.
Day 2 – Tuesday 0730 start
After a good dinner at Sage last
night, the judges are a bit late this morning; otherwise this is a repeat of
Monday. Some of the judges rotate across
the different judging panels each day, but the panel chairs, (Ian Riggs, Tom
Carson, Vanya Cullen and Ian McKenzie), and associates stay constant in their
original location.
I had to call for help as my trusty
senior steward mate (who got me on the team in the first place) went to lunch
just before the panel chair asked for 7 wines (x 5 glasses) to be re-poured so
they could re-assess the top wines.
Luckily another
steward was available and happy to help out.
Day 3 – Wednesday 0730 start
There are a couple of big classes of reds first
up. We are one steward short due to illness. It’s very busy but everyone
pitches in to help out in the hectic spots, including Tim Kirk who is a committee
member.
At the end of the day, there is the usual
clean-up, but there is additional work to re-arrange some of the judging tables
and set up the wines and a large number of glasses, in readiness for the trophy
taste-off on Thursday morning. The Trophy system is a complex process, with
some trophy-winners going on to additional taste-offs to determine other
trophies and eventually the top wine of the show.
Wines and glasses setup for Trophy Judging
Judging tables re-arranged for the trophy
taste-off.
The Judges, committee and stewards (and
partners) go out to a joint dinner. Thankfully the speeches are short and the
wines good, but unfortunately the food is not up to expectations. Tables of 9 are filled with a mix of judges,
stewards and committee members. We had judges Tom Stevenson (champagne expert)
and Jim Chatto of Chatto
Wines as well as Tim Kirk of Clonakilla at our table.
There was some merriment when only
one of the stewards was found to be carrying a corkscrew, an antique-style
ratchet waiter’s friend that James Halliday had trouble operating.
As well as some show samples
selected from medal winners during the show, Tim Kirk provided magnums of his
2005 and 2001 Shiraz/Viognier.
Unfortunately the 2001 was found to be corked. Even worse for Tim, that night/next morning he lost much
of his vineyard crop to a freakishly late frost.
Day 4 – Thursday 0830 start, Trophy taste-off day.
A team of the most experienced
stewards were responsible for managing the bottles and making the 17 pours from
half a bottle of wine. If a wine makes it to the next stage of trophy judging,
the rest of the bottle is needed.
The guy who knows how the trophy system
works!
I and the other stewards spent our
time making up trays of 17 glasses, taking the wines out to the judges (up to 6
wines in a taste-off, but usually 2-4) and clearing the glasses after each trophy
assessment. It’s all over before
The left-overs in the open bottles of the trophy winners/contenders are taken
to the stewards’ lunch. J Then
after a bit of tidying up we have an early finish.
Left-overs for lunch.
Day 5 – Friday 0900 start
This is the first cleanup day. We pour
out the remaining open bottles of wine into buckets and then into a big poly
tank. We bin the bottles, wipe down and pack up the judging/stewards tables and
most of the screens.
Then it’s time to start getting ready for the Trade and 
A few of my friends scored most of the whites
and some of the reds; lucky I’m not in this for the pay!
Day 6 – Saturday 0900 start
Two teams of two people each check
the draft show results, class by class, wine by wine, against copies of the
panel chairmen’s scoring sheet with the class comments. No significant errors were found, the results
recording process is well honed by now.
It was interesting to note some of the comments and faults recorded against some wines, including low scores due to perceived brett in a 2002 vintage of a wine whose previous release sold for around $100! There were numerous reports of brett, sulphide faults and “stuck ferment” characters, as well as stylistic problems like too much residual sugar, in both reds and whites.
The checking is complete in a couple of hours, then there is a one-week hiatus for the stewards until the Tasting Day.
Friday the next week – 0730 start, late finish
We arrived early for final
preparations for the Trade Tasting (0800-1200), Sponsor Tastings and the
Some highlights of the tasting
sessions include: The woman who, after spilling a sweet white botrytis wine
everywhere including over herself, asked a steward if
she could wipe her hands on his white coat!
Then there was the person who found a row of empty bottles at a gold
medal wine spot and asked the steward if he would kindly fetch him another
bottle, pronto. It was also amusing to
see how many trade representatives couldn’t cope with opening the warmer than
usual sparkling wines without getting a torrent of wine all over the table.
I spent a lot of my time manning a
big cork extractor (along with another few of stewards, there was a total of 4
cork extractors), but we were under-employed due to the large number of
screwcaps in the entries. There seemed
to be a lot of soft/crumbly corks that broke apart and had to be eased out with
a waiter’s friend, even on relatively young wines. One chap in a Rosemount shirt brought a
Rosemount red for uncorking and then returned a little sheepishly a minute
later with another bottle of the wine, the first was corked!
The wineries take the trade tasting
as a serious opportunity to taste their wines against the competition. Fosters
had a group of about 30, mostly winemakers, there to taste their wines and some
of the competitor’s wines. In one class
there were about a dozen Fosters wines under various labels that mostly didn’t
win a medal, and three people were assigned a list of wines to assess, and make
comments and report on possible lessons to be learnt.
The major show sponsor, Vintage Cellars,
provided lunch for the show staff and trade people who wanted to stay. There
was quite a feast available, again with selected open bottles of show samples to
drink. There was a gap after lunch until
the next tasting; a few people caught a quick nap or put their feet up and
chatted, and topped up with cold bottled water for the evening onslaught.
The
After the finish of the last tasting session we began the final clean-up process. Luckily we had the team of additional volunteers that had helped with the set-up helping out again. We had to empty all the open bottles into buckets, and then into a big poly container to be taken off for distillation. The empties are packed in big bins for recycling. We selected and packed the remaining unopened wines in various esoteric ways under direction from the show committee for allocation to the show society cellar, and some go to the horde of volunteers, stewards and committee-members who make the show possible. Then we clear, clean and stack tables, empty bins etc.
We finished around 2330 and retired
home tired but happy with another job well done.
Aftermath
I managed to survive without any
significant stuff-ups and did not to break any glasses; in fact I feel good
about my contribution to the team effort, so I think I’ll get invited back
again next year. I hope so. It’s a very
interesting and rewarding exercise, not always hard work physically, but
requiring alertness, care and concentration for sustained periods to ensure it
all happens smoothly, accurately and on schedule, as this show did. The
(The Show Schedule, Regulations and 2006 Results are available here: http://www.rncas.org.au/WineShow/index.htm)