New IWSC judging venue proves popular with judges

The first set of judging sessions of the IWSC 2019 is now complete. 

Over the past three months, hundreds of expert judges have tasted and scored wines from countries across the northern hemisphere, including France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as emerging winemaking countries like Georgia, Croatia, Canada, and China.

This year saw the wine tastings move to a central London venue, The China Exchange, making judging more accessible, especially for international wine professionals to take part.

“For the 50^thanniversary, we decided to move the judging to London – we know our judges are busy, so we felt that a central location was easier, and we’re excited to have found this great venue in the heart of London,” said IWSC wine director Christelle Guibert. 

“We have also brought on a lot of new judges, many of whom are buyers in the wine industry and therefore have commercial influence.”

The new location has attracted a range of high-profile industry influencers, including WoodWinters sales manager Sara Bachiorri, and Andres Ituarte, group head sommelier at Tamarind Collection. 

“It’s exciting to be here,” said Bachiorri at the first judging session of the year.

“It’s great to be with a lot of professionals from the wine trade – talking with them and comparing tasting notes. We had a very good round of wines as well.” 

“It’s interesting because in a lot of these competitions you see the same faces over and over again, but we’ve got a really eclectic mix of judges on our table here – people from around the world – which is quite cool,” added Ituarte.

The judging days have been headed up by members of the new Wine Judging Committee, put together to oversee judging days, including John Hoskins MW (pictured above), Xavier Rousset MS, and Mick O’Connell MW.

“It’s brilliant to see all the panels interacting so well, the Wine Judging Committee taking on a supportive role, and the sheer amount of wines moving from the bottle into the glass and being scored,” said Pip Mortimer, senior tasting manager at the IWSC.

Visit our YouTube channel to watch more videos on the IWSC judging sessions.