The wine industry is finally beginning to attempt to address the Australian wine show ‘system’. The Australian Society of Viticulture and Oenology (ASVO) held a one-day seminar in Melbourne on Thursday 9th of August at which a wide cross section of industry, media and trade were encouraged to express their concerns with the way that wine shows are conducted and promoted in this country. An ASVO sub-committee has been convened to follow up many of the issues raised, with a particular emphasis on the possibility of developed a tiered hierarchy of wine shows. At the root of the problems facing Australian wine shows is the issue that it is less of a system and more of a circuit. Very few of the wine shows in Australia have any relationship with the industry, let alone with each other. Most wine shows, including all capital city wine shows with the exception of Canberra, are owned and conducted by the Wine Committees of their State’s Agricultural Societies. Canberra’s show is the responsibility of its own wine show committee. Each of the Wine Committees has an established history of jealously guarding their own turf and have tended to resist any attempt towards broad spectrum change and modernisation. At the Melbourne and Brisbane Shows unfinished and unbottled wines are not only welcomed, but are awarded medals and trophies. The committees behind these shows have steadfastly rejected every argument that they should only judge finished and bottled wines. However, they are not part of any regulated or organised system and are answerable only to themselves. One wonders if the only way that some such shows will ever correct their inherent flaws is through gradual generational change, given that the present incumbents of these committees have had more than enough time and notice to get their acts together. Some shows are prepared to trial new and innovative ideas. Under Brian Croser’s chairmanship the Adelaide Show introduced its controversial system of judging some classes by price category. It also initiated the very worthwhile system of training potential new show judges, and in doing so has unearthed some excellent young talent that it has not been afraid to promote. The idea of a hierarchy of wine shows in Australia is anything but a recent notion. While Chairman of the Wine Show Committee of the Federal Council of the Australian Wine and Brandy Producers Association in the mid 1970s, Len Evans presented a detailed proposal to the wine industry along precisely these lines. Regional shows would be encouraged and developed, but would only include entries from their particular region. Medal winners would then be granted admission to their own State shows, which would therefore only judge the best entries produced within their particular State. Medal-winners at State level would then be admitted to a National Show. Given that Evans’ proposal was made before the initiation of the National Wine Show at Canberra, it’s possible to see how far-thinking this idea was. Of course it was doomed from the start, for the reasons outlined above. To give you an idea of how urgent is reform along these lines today, here is a brief summary of the type of wine show presently found in Australia today, which presently number between forty and fifty. The capital city shows that are open to all wines on a national basis. Regional shows open to wines specifically grown within the particular region, ie the Southern Victorian Wines Show, the Clare Valley Wine Show, the Hunter Valley Wine Show. Regional wine shows that masquerade as national shows and admit entries from the entire country, ie the Rutherglen and Cowra shows. Commercially operated shows run by commercial/promotional companies, ie The Sydney International Wine Competition and the Australian Boutique Winemakers Wine Awards. Genuine State-based shows that only admit entries from the state in question, ie The Victorian Wines Show, the Wine Show of Western Australia in Mount Barker and the Tasmanian Regional Wines Show in Launceston. Commercially operated shows/competitions designed as promotional vehicles for a region, ie The Great Australian Shiraz Challenge, which is conducted by the Goulburn Valley Winemakers Association. It’s easy to see that there is simply no cohesion between the different types of wine show which presently constitute the Australian wine show circuit. It is certainly no ‘system’, however desirable one such system would be. I hope that the ASVO committee is able to present a worthwhile and workable plan for a show hierarchy and a series of wine show guidelines that the various branches of the show circuit might actually take seriously. There is no need for every show to follow precisely the same format, but there should be a common underswell of logic beneath the operations of all shows. Some areas that need to be addressed are: The awarding of medals and trophies to unfinished wines, The number of entries in the shows, which makes them excessively long and arduous to judge, The maximum number of wines a judge should be required to taste in a single day, The eligibility of judges whose wines are entered into the shows, The sheer number of different wine shows in Australia, The size of classes for young wines which can number more than 200, The ability of large companies to flood classes with large amounts of wines entered under different brand names. The various wine shows around Australia would not exist without a wine industry to support them. Perhaps it is time for the industry to make demands on the bodies responsible for key shows already in the ‘system’, to encourage a more standardised and credible approach built around a national hierarchy of shows. Then, if some shows still refuse to tow the line, the industry should establish its own shows based around its own guidelines. It’s time for the wine industry to become a partner in the show circuit, or else it might lose the opportunity presented by this current focus of attention to develop a system that really works.
