Page 353 - NEWNORMAL_ANIMATED

WINE COMPETITIONS

many gifts, i.e. free submissions, only 870 wi-
nes were submitted.
In collaboration with a wine merchant, we
bought a total of 150 samples from a variety
of trading houses, markets, and so on, in order
to crack the magic number of 1000 different
samples. What a time; everything was hand-
-labelled, incorporated into Excel tables and
tasting sheets filled out by hand and then sent
by fax, and much more.
The Berliner Wine Trophy was and still is
a passion. And those making submissions saw
and acknowledged that. We had 2000 samp-
les by 2008, and the number of samples, sub-
mitters, and participants continued to grow
in the years to follow. At present, the Berliner
Wine Trophy has a self-appointed maximum
number of samples that can be submitted,
which stands at 7000 per event (winter and
summer). This ensures that the event can be
overseen with precision and that it doesn‘t our participants and available to answer any
descend into a mass event. Over the years, of their questions. Given the number of sam-
Asia and Portugal have been added as tasting ples, none of us can afford to think we‘re too
events. Each event is held in collaboration good for a job; we all push pallets around, put
with the local authorities and wine-growing bottles away, or fill paper containers in the
regions (Portugal). This internationality is also yard. And I‘m proud that we as DWM work like
what defines DWM. this as a team. And that‘s what defines our suc-
Everything is processed by our system, cess and our position.
which was developed by our EDP department
itself, and updated on a continuous basis. In What‘s the future of wine competitions?
addition to the OIV, we also currently have the Will they continue to be a powerful marke-
patronage of UIOE, the International Union ting tool?
of Oenologists, we are a member of Vinofed, Yes, of course they will. More and more con-
we have award winners conduct analyses at sumers are becoming overwhelmed by the
our expense, and have also placed ourselves number of different wines. An award from
under notarial supervision to ensure testing is a recognised competition can help immensely
conducted in the proper manner. in this regard. Unfortunately, legal controls on
And the most important thing of all: we all competitions have been abolished, which has
have lots of fun at the event, we work on the caused a great number of charlatans to clutter
trophy passionately, we‘re always there crea- the market who have in no way earned the
ting as much added value for participants as distinction of „objective“. There are, nonethe-
possible, such as digital photos of each wine less, many good ones as well. And of course
submitted; or the Asia Wine Trophy as well the patronage of the OIV is a great guarantee
where the costs are covered by the city of Dae- of strict monitoring by a higher institution.
jeon and DWM to give participants access to I would like to emphasise that almost all of the
the Asian market. We‘re also always there for largest international competitions also work
353