Beyond Dollars and Sense

We Canadians are paying too much for wine. Not all the time, of course, but it is the rule more than the exception. You can blame out-of-touch marketers and producers, or high-minded retailers, or, if you’re like me, the overzealous taxing of liquor. In a country where everything from hospitals to bike lanes is dependent on liquor revenues, wine is taxed to death, which is why consumers revel in discovering wine bargains. The real challenge is finding great value wine. That is why we are happy, every year, to take on the task of locating the best bargains sold in Canada with the Wine Access International Value Wine Awards (IVWA).

The results of this year’s competition are a testament to how well our competition works, not only as a concept (winning wines are out there), but in execution, as well.

It goes without saying that we at Wine Access benefit from running this competition, but the three groups that we think get (or should get) the most out of the results are the judges, the industry and you, the consumer.

There are scores of important wine competitions that happen annually around the world. More often than not, judges leave these competitions with little more than their experiences as a keepsake. The IVWA, however, is computerized from start to finish. The same software that allows competitors to enter wines online and track their arrival to the competition allows us to build flights for all those wines, assign them to judging panels for blind tasting and track their scores. At the end of the weeklong affair, each judge walks away with copies of all of their observations and scoring sheets, all of their scores and a set of key sheets that reveal which wines they tasted. While no judge has a real sense of the overall results of the competition, they each get to walk away with their contribution to the final picture and hundreds of tasting notes and impressions that they can share with their readers across the country.

The only group that goes through a more rigorous week of competition than the judges are the wines themselves. In order to appear in this issue, a wine must score high enough in a preliminary round to advance to the finals. Once there, it must again score high enough tasted against the best wines in its category to become a Judges’ Choice or, better yet, a Category Champion. Finally, availability and prices are checked to be sure the wine really does sell somewhere in Canada for $25 or less. It is thorough, challenging, and winning is a significant accomplishment.

If I were running a retail store, I would stack the winning wines to the ceiling. If I were running a winery, I would brag for an entire year to anyone who would listen that my wine won an award at the IVWA. Moreover, I would be confident that what I was producing, in the highly competitive $25 and under category, was among the best in its class across the country.

Being an IVWA winner, putting that sticker of acknowledgement on your bottle lets consumers know you have been judged vigorously and have come through with flying colours. And it is consumers, you readers and lovers of wine, at whom these results are aimed. The competition buzz and the press releases and marketing aside, this issue is a shopping guide for you. We think you deserve a break from ridiculously high wine prices and these winning wines should provide that relief.

In the end, dollars spent speak louder than any accolade, so show the industry it is doing something right by rewarding its efforts with bottles purchased. If you do, I guarantee next year’s results will be even bigger and better, because no producer can resist the opportunity to benchmark its wines against the competition and get its name on the country’s most-exclusive wine list.