2022 Spirits Awards - deliberations from our judges #2

As we wrap up the first week of our judging, today has been about grape spirits and vodka.

We hear from Spirits Judging Committee member Joel Harrisonwho was overseeing the grape spirit judging, on his thoughts of how the day panned out:

“The standouts for me in terms of the brandies were probably French brandy and surprisingly, Moldovan brandy. We've also seen some great Grappas in there as well.

“As part of today’s judging we've had the classics obviously, so plenty of cognac and Armagnac and some of the standard bearers of quality. The Armagnacs in particular have been showing well today and showed really well and we actually had a Blanche Armagnacs, so the white variety, which really shone through, displaying fantastic flavour, great balance and great complexity.

“With the aged Armagnacs there was a couple which have been awarded Gold outstanding So a great performance from the Armagnac area.

“And then the other one that always surprises me every year, and I don't know why it surprises me so often, is Grappa. We’ve tasted some great Grappas today, there are definitely some Gold medals in the mix from there today.”