A fascinating test for wines

It was one warm afternoon when I got a call from Shalini Kumar, the Editor of Spiritz Magazine, requesting me to conduct ‘Blind Wine Tasting’ for Spiritz Selection Awards 2020.

Sommelier Kriti Malhotra

It was that time of the year when there was lots of excitement, hustle and bustle at the magazine office as they have been conducting these blind tastings since 2016, for the Spiritz Selection Awards.

Spiritz Selection Awards is perhaps our country’s most relevant and unique wine competition. The jury is being very carefully chosen for the competition and for this year’s edition of the competition also it was no exception. It involved top-level wine professionals who not only understand the market but also the consumer taste profiles.

The competition singles out and shines the spotlight on those wine brands which consumers are eager to buy and which have a clear market value in India’s alcobev industry.

I immediately jumped on the opportunity and began preparing myself mentally.

This was my second year of conducting the blind wine tasting for the prestigious competition. I wanted the theme to be different from the last time.

Last year the focus was more on how the wines tasted on their own and with food. This year we decided on consumer focus and had the following categories for Indian wines:

1. Easy drinking under Rs. 1,000 for whites/reds
2. Premium wines of India for whites/ reds
3. India’s sparkling wines
4. India’s Rose wines

Finally, on 17th Sept 2020, months of planning was translated into action. The tasting began sharp at 11 am. We started drinking (I mean tasting) at 11 am. It was work and also great fun. Top Indian wine brands like Fratelli, Grovers Zampa, KRSMA, Reveilo and more participated in this exercise. We tasted more than 30 wines on a single day.

We rated, reviewed and adjudged the wines based on three important criteria: quality, value for money, and packaging. The objective was to ascertain important features of wines purely through the acts of seeing, sniffing and tasting the wines in glass. The jury was asked to give their rating.

The jury must have had a tough time in deciding on the rating as all wines at the competition had their own unique style. But it was a call that they had to take.

KRSMA Estates’ wines got high ratings, sparkling wine by Grover Zampa and the rose wine from Fratelli Wines got wide attraction. The surprise element rose when the bottles’ identity was revealed.

This time we did something additional as well. Once the wines were rated the bottles were shown to jury to rate the packaging, closure, and more. The intention of doing the exercise was to see how much effort was being put in packaging and also how friendly the label/ packaging, etc. was from the point of view of consumers.

The day ended with the jury members enjoying their favourite wines and discussing the wines after the official competition got over.

The results will be announced virtually, on 17th Oct 2020, on Spiritz’s online platforms. Lookout for the list of winners- who knows the wine you always loved was also chosen by the esteemed jury!

I sincerely thank Spiritz Magazine for giving me this opportunity once again.