2012 Decanter World Wine Awards: Day 4 – trophy day

Katie Exton (Chez Bruce) 

Four days, four gold medals and two regional trophies 

Yesterday concluded our four days of judging Loire wines for the 2012 Decanter World Wine Awards. It was an interesting and varied day showing once again what diversity of styles there are in the Loire. We looked at sparkling wines – white and rosé, some more Sancerre in all three colours, dry and demi-sec rosé and concluded with various reds from Cheverny, Valençay and AC Touraine. During the afternoon we hit a high point with a 2010 Sancerre Rouge, which was awarded gold.  

Victoria Stephens-Clarkson 

Katie Exton, sommelier at Chez Bruce, and Victoria Stephens-Clarkson, formerly wine buyer for Liberty wines and now with the family wine business in the Cotswolds, joined Nigel Wilkinson (RSJ Restaurant).

Our day ended with a re-tasting of our gold medal wines and assessing whether any of these were good enough for a Regional Trophy. Our answer was yes, so this year the Loire has an unprecedented two Regional Trophy winners – Red Loire over £10 and Sweet Loire over £10. These two wines will now go forward to be tasted with their peers from other parts of the wine world to decide the International Trophy winners. 

The regional results will be announced during the London Wine Trade Fair, while the International Trophy Winners won't be known until the awards dinner in September.

We tasted just over 300 wines over the four days – easily the biggest Loire DWWA entry ever. My thanks to all the Loire judges: Yves Desmaris MS, Katie Exton, Chris Kissack, Ken Mackay MW, Victoria Stephens-Clarkson and Jason Yapp.  

Special thanks to Sebastian Denton, our red shirt who looked after us brilliantly. He didn't even throw a wobbly when the regional chair insisted on a complete change of glasses after a flight of Rosé d'Anjou and Cabernet d'Anjou before more onto our final flight of reds!

          

2012 Decanter World Wine Awards: a golden day on Loire panel

 Part of the Loire panel: Chris Kissack (The Wine Doctor) and Nigel Wilkinson (RSJ Restaurant) 

In contrast to yesterday when the rather dreary morning flights of not very good Sauvignon – vin de pays, Touraine and some of the Central Vineyard appellations was followed by some good Muscadet today was very productive throughout yielding an all-time record haul of medals. A short range of vin de pays Chardonnays was the only poor flight of the day. 

On the panel today were established members Chris Kissack and Nigel Wilkinson along with newcomer – Jason Yapp of Yapp Brothers. Several flights of Pouilly-Fumé took up most of the morning. Around 60% were from the 2011 vintage and 40% from 2010. In previous years Pouilly-Fumé has been disappointing. However, this year the quality was much improved and, although there were no golds, we were able to award four Silvers, six Bronzes and to commend a number.          

 Jason Yapp of Yapp Brothers 

Nigel Wilkinson searching for the secret of Chenin

In the afternoon we moved on to Chenin Blanc starting with a range of good dry whites from Anjou through to Touraine. Then on to a flight with five Savennières and four Vouvrays – mainly from the 2010 vintage. Again a good standard but none hit the heights attained by FL's 2008 Château de Chamboureau, which took the Loire Over £10 Trophy.  

We finished with a very fine range of eleven sweet wines running westward from Coteaux de Saumur through to the Quarts de Chaume with all but one coming from the excellent 2010 vintage. In unprecedented scenes we awarded three golds – a Coteaux de Saumur, a Coteaux du Layon Chaume and a Quarts de Chaume. To put this into context we awarded a total of two golds last year and none the year before. No doubt that 2010 is best sweet wine vintage in the western part of the Loire (Anjou-Saumur) since the lovely 2007s.   

 Jason Yapp

Sebastian Denton

We have been looked after brilliantly by our 'red shirt' Sebastian Denton, son of Michael Denton, Decanter's long serving advertising manager for France.   

 Sebastian@work