Concours Mondial de Bruxelles: Behind the Scenes of the World's Largest Wine Competition

First published in the print edition of Good Wine Magazine, 2014.

We often get to hear of international wine competitions and the medals that wines win in them, but only few Ukrainians I have met know which competitions are important and how they are organized. Let me tell you about Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, probably the world’s largest and most recognized wine competition. Since being founded in 1994, it has obtained the status of the wine world championship. This is due to two reasons. Compared to other wine competitions, Concours Mondial uses a much more sophisticated methodology to evaluate wines. Also, its number of judges and the variety of theirs backgrounds is incomparable with most other competitions.

Recently, I was invited to experience Concours Mondial behind the scenes and had the opportunity to learn every detail of its organization from inside. From May 2 through May 4, 2014, acknowledged wine experts from all over the world convened in Brussels for the celebration of the 20th anniversary edition of the competition. They include experts such as Aristide Spies, third best Sommelier in the World, or Cees van Casteren, Master of Wine and Champagne Ambassador.

This year, 8166 wines from 58 countries battled for a medal. The wines were judged by more than 300 judges representing as many as 51 nationalities. The scale of the competition is massive and the organization is truly remarkable. Unlike some other competitions, Concours Mondial is open to every wine with a geographical indication. There is no pre-selection, as a participating wine’s score would be the same in the pre-selection and in the final competition. However, increased participation makes the wine selection as widely representative as possible. Just imagine that these samples represent more than half a billion marketed bottles!

Of course, all participating producers aim for medals, which pave the way for recognition, publicity, and fame. However, only few win. The producers who are awarded a medal may use its depiction on the bottle of the winning wine, which offers exposure for the producer and serves as a reliable buying cue for the consumer. We all know that finding the ‘right’ wine among thousands of commercially available products is not an easy task. Even though personal taste and experience are still the best guides, the consumer looking for reliable quality indications can have complete confidence in the medals of Concours Mondial.

The evaluation is tough, but fair. Only the wines obtaining the best scores will be awarded. For a silver medal, a wine must score between 84% and 86.9%. A gold medal is given to wines getting a score between 87% and 92.4%. The highest distinction, the great gold medal, is only awarded to wines scoring higher than 92.5%. This year, less than one percent of the wines (only 73 out of the 8166 participating wines) were judged to deserve a great gold medal. In particular, Champagne RC Lemaire Cuvée Sélect Réserve Brut was named the best sparkling wine this year. The best red wine was Duvalley Reserva 2010 (from Douro, Portugal).

The reader could ask me, of course, if a wine getting 87% (and wins a gold medal) is so much better than a wine getting just 0.5% less (and “only” gets a silver medal). I suggest thinking of it this way: Is an Olympic runner who wins a gold medal much faster than a runner who arrives just half a second later and “only” gets a silver medal? That is, there are strict thresholds which delineate the three types of medals in accordance with the tasting methodology and the statistical techniques used.

Judging the wines is also not an easy walk in the park. The jury members get about three minutes to taste each wine sample and judge up to 50 wines a day. Their main challenge is to evaluate the samples consistently. Therefore, the jury is composed solely of professional tasters, wine personalities and renowned experts in the field of wine. The jury members are divided into about fifty panels, each comprising between five and seven judges.

Before each tasting session, a palate preparation exercise is conducted to harmonize and calibrate the marks. The tasted samples are grouped into flights by origin and style. Needless to say, all wines are tasted blind and are evaluated on appearance, smell and taste. The marks on each criterion determine the overall weighted score for each sample. In order to ensure consistent tasting by the jury members, a certain wine is included twice in every flight.

Several advanced methods for analyzing the performance of the judges have also been developed, assuring the quality and consistency of the results. For example, the scores significantly deviating from the average score of the panel (the so-called “statistical outliers”) are excluded from the evaluation. Such deviation, however, do not happen very often. Should a jury member fail to judge consistently, he or she will no longer be invited the following year.

In sum, Concours Mondial distinguishes itself from other wine competitions by the highly professional organization of the event and the judging procedure. For that purpose, the organization closely collaborates with the Statistics Institute of the Catholic University of Louvain to monitor and assess the results. The standardization method that Concours Mondial has devised and used to ensure the reliability of the ratings was even certified in 2004. In addition, the competition is conducted under surveillance of the officials of the Belgian Ministry of the Economy, which ensures compliance with all the European Union rules regarding the organization of competitions.

What also appears remarkable to me, is that the judges of Concours Mondial tend to appreciate the authenticity of wines. Therefore, it may well be that, in order to gain international recognition as a wine country, it is not sufficient to make wines that are high in quality. These wines must also be unique, based on indigenous grape varieties or original styles, that cannot be found elsewhere in the world. This may be a good path follow for Ukrainian winemakers who wish to participate in Concours Mondial.