text: A rant about promoting wines as award-winners when actually they're not - One Foot In The Grapes
  A rant about promoting wines as award-winners when actually they're not
  I'm not going to cast any aspersions on anybody here (even though perhaps I should).
  But *deep sighs*.
  Ladies and gents – do yourselves a favour and when you see a wine branded as an award-winner online, or in a supermarket, don't always take it for granted that the one your mitts are eagerly reaching towards is actually the vintage that has impressed judges.
  For some reason now and again eager marketing souls just don't use correct details; wines will be promoted as award-winners when actually they are not. Do they want to hang the badge of success on another wine to boost sales? Do they do it on purpose? Who knows. To be fair, it probably isn't – but these things should be checked. *puts foot down grumpily*
  It annoys me intensely. I discover it regularly as I sip and sniff my way along life's highway. (Wine that is. I am not a badger.)
  "An award-winner" declares the bumph. Found one just now – hence my little rant. I won't tell you which one as that would point an unbalanced finger to that wine, when I've seen several other examples. I would imagine at least one a week.
  I'll often read something like … Jack Blogg's marvellous Lesser Waddle Bridge Sauvignon Blanc 2012 picked up a silver award at the 2010 International World Wine Snifters Competition.
  Your first clue is the vintage. Now seeing the word "vintage" is not necessarily a mark of quality – it simply means the year the grapes were grown. It can be a poor vintage or a good vintage.
  So a clue is … if a wine is on a shelf with a 2013 label and it is branded as winning a 2011 award then that is bloody clever indeed and perhaps Dr Who and his Tardis had played a hand in transporting grapes back in time. It is not usually as obvious as that. I'm just cross and trying to make a point.
  I once rang a PR and asked them to change the details on their wine website because the vintage being sold was not the award-winning year as illustrated by silver and gold flashes pinned brightly on the web page.
  Does it matter? Well if you enjoy the wine anyway then perhaps it doesn't. (Although trades' descriptions comes to mind.) But if you buy the wine impressed by its Proud Chin Jutting Straight-Backed I've Won An Award stance but it ends up an awful, different vintage, then that's not fair at all.