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NEW NORMAL

In addition, if the large Supermarkets have
brought a breath of oxygen to the cellars
which were present on this market, the clo-
sure of bars and restaurants is causing a real
earthquake in the festive and occasional con-
sumption.
The magnitude of the economic consequen- BACCHUS
ces will depend on the ability of many to resist MADRID
and bounce back.
In this exceptional situation, what can wine
competitions bring? Everyone is talking about
teleworking, digitisation, virtualisation.
Is this a temporary or lasting solution for
competitions? The interest of shared tastings
was to provide both an answer and a questi- Fernando Gurucharri
oning, if necessary, of the production. It also President of the Spanish Wine Tasters
made it possible to identify trends, and to Association (www.uec.es) and Director of
provide the opportunity for a constructive ex- Bacchus Wine International Competition
change between the tasters. (www.concursobacchus.es). Biologist
Until now, what was exceptional was for and Winemaker. Member of the Madrid’s
a sample to go „around the world“ in a few Academy of Gastronomy. President of
minutes and to obtain the consensus of tas- VilaViniteca Couples Tasting contest.
ters with diverse and varied sensations and
knowledge representative of the various con- Who can predict the future of wine com-
tinents. petitions? In our opinion, before or after the
These tastings were tools given to producers competition calendar will be reduced to tho-
to promote their wines but also sometimes the se that demonstrate their value as an inde-
main source of income for some organisers. pendent and rigorous guide to the quality of
Under the pretext of security, some are now the wines that are awarded in them. We are
moving towards a taster, a bottle, a computer convinced that the producer and especially
... If this trend continued for primarily financial the consumer sectors need wine and other
reasons, the competitions would then lose all food and beverage competitions as a source
interest. Organizers must be honest with con- of information, but there is no doubt that the
sumers and not be tempted by a more econo- competitions will prevail if they are adapted
mical solution for them. and updated to the needs of both parties. Our
The solution will perhaps be to not move association, Spanish Wine Tasters Association
towards “mammoth” competitions (with an (www.uec.es), has been organizing wine com-
exceptionally large number of samples) but petitions since its foundation on 1986, and we
rather towards small entities capable of orga- have had to update not only technical aspects
nising, according to strict standards, tastings such as the rules of our wine competitions,
under conditions likely to provide a real an- but also the philosophy of them in terms of
swer to consumers and give them back the professional profiles of the tasters selected. So
desire to consume, which is the purpose of that, as organizers since 1996 of Bacchus Wine
a competition. International Competition (www.concursoba-
We can hope that this crisis will partly serve cchus.es), we have been working in this way,
to moralise and regulate excesses. ƅ selecting every year international opinion

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