Judging at Concours Mondial

When I was invited to judge at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles in Luxembourg in May, I was pretty thrilled. Luxembourg probably isn’t on most Canadians’ travel bucket list — I hadn’t given the country a spare thought since I was in university — but opportunity brings new experiences and I was looking forward to visiting the country for the first time.

The Concours Mondial is one of the most esteemed competitions for wines and spirits in the world. It tends to favour European and Old World wines, but based on what I saw, you can safely use the winners from the competition to guide your wine purchases. Once the results are released, I will be sure to identify some of the good wines that I tasted.

Due to my flights, I had missed the initial seminar sessions — which probably would have been helpful as a first time judge — but I was able to attend the welcome cocktail party for the judges. I tasted wines from Luxembourg for the first time at the party.

Luxembourg produces a wide range of Crémant de Luxembourg (sparkling wine), rose, pinot noir, pinot blanc, pinot gris and riesling. The wines typically have some of the mineral texture of Alsace, but not the residual sugar that you might associate with German wines. Luxembourg is a net importer of wines and very few of their wines can be found outside of Luxembourg and Belgium. So as interesting as their wines are, you probably won’t see many for sale in Canada.

The Concours Mondial is a powerful engine — more than 270 judges tasted more than 7000 wines and spirits over three half-day sessions. Almost 100 people worked alongside the judges, pouring and serving the samples, cataloguing and tracking the wines, inputting data and calculating statistics. I’m certain that hitches and snags happened along the way, but the staff were very skilled and I didn’t notice any flaws (and I’ve helped run competitions before).

When we weren’t tasting, the judges were sent on winery tours and to lunches to get exposure to the region, its cuisine and its wines.

At the wineries, we had a chance to speak with winemakers, try their wines and learn about the uphill battle they face getting their wines exported. Luxembourg wine production is small and the prices are a little high. Crémant, Luxembourg’s signature wine, faces competition from Crémant de Bourgogne and Crémant d’Alsace and their white wines are very similar to the wines of Alsace.

The judges were treated like royalty during Concours Mondial and although there was plenty to do during the competition, I never felt like the judging was an afterthought. It was great to see that the European competition judges party hard, but work even harder.

In 2012, the competition will be held in Guimarães, Portugal and I sincerely hope I can attend.