Students join judging panel for national wine awards

Stephanie Maddox and Kate Clark, third-year NMIT students on Bachelor of Viticulture and Winemaking(external link) were associate judges for the 20th annual awards(external link) which attracted entries from more than 150 wineries and wine distributors from around New Zealand and overseas.

The students were part of an independent panel of 17 experts who spent three full days assessing more than 1,200 wine entries.

After swirling, sniffing, sipping, spitting and scoring around 100 wines per day they whittle the field down to the best of the best: the Top 50 wines that will be available for $25 or less in New World supermarkets nationwide.

Judging is ‘blind’, meaning the judges only assess the wine in the glass on the day, and do not know the brand of any entry.

NMIT Viticulture and Winemaking tutor, Ngarita Warden is grateful to New World for offering the associate judging scholarships to our top students.

“The New World wine awards and the associate judging positions are a fantastic opportunity for our students to work with industry leaders, grow in confidence with their tasting ability and learn very valuable skills.”

The best of the Top 50 will then be tasted once again by the entire judging panel to determine the Champions of each main varietal, and an overall Champion Red, Champion White and Champion Sparkling.

The awards are judged in Marlborough in August, but the results are announced later in the year.