We get to judge wine. Concours Amphore, Paris.

In a roundabout way we heard of an annual event in Paris - the Concours Amphore. At first we thought this might be a competition to find the best Amphora maker. We had been looking at amphora online for one of our our micro vinifications and so the idea of an exhibition space full of amphora and their makers seemed just the thing.

This was of course a characteristic Slotovino misunderstanding. The Concours Amphore is actually a competition for bio wines held annually since 1996 in Paris in which over 100 judged get to taste wines blind from different areas - both French and international - and rate them according to an ingenious marking system and elect winners of Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. Not an amphora in sight although some of the wines had had more than a passing acqaintance with them.

the man himself, Pierre Guigui

The founder and still the organiser of this institution is Pierre Guigui, a marvellous character described as 'ex-monsieur Vins du Gault et Millau. He is also a writer and consultant with more than 15 publications to his name.

He was kind enough to allow us to attend the competition. We would have been happy to do so as an observer but in fact there are only judges and so never having done so before, we did indeed judge.

You were supposed to declare your interest beforehand so you could be allotted to a relevant table (Bordeaux, Languedoc, Greece etc.). Tables consisted of 4 judges. Having failed to give this notice, M. Guigui told us to find a table where there were less than 4 judges and take our place there.

We managed to insinuate ourselves onto an Alsace/Jura/Savoie table (very much to our taste) with two gentlemen and a lady already in residence and then off we went in a businesslike way.

We were given several pages with easy to follow instructions on the clever judging system. You may be able to see from the above that there was a matrix consisting of

Visuel Aspect
Olfactif Intensite Qualite
Gustatif Qualite Persistance
Impression Generale

and scores relating to Excellent, Tres Bon, Bon, Insuffisant and Mauvais.

Our fellow judges were serious and knowledgeable, discussing each wine in the way French people are so good at. Some of the talk was a bit abstract for us but they seemed to share a common gamut of references. From time to time they sought to include us in these deliberations but we didn't go much further than nodding sagely and saying in general if a wine had made a good impression or not.

Gold

We marked down the very first wine probably too severely for fear of being too generous but were rather happy at the end to have chosen the same wine as the others as our candidate for Gold: Zind-Humbrecht's Alsace Grand Cru Rangen de Thann Pinot Gris.

the label doesn't reflect the quality of this lovely wine

delicious Orange wine

good Sylvaner from Alsace

12.5%

We rather likes some of the other wines at our table but our colleagues had other ideas and none of these received a medal

After the judging, we were able to go around the remaining wines from other tables and taste to our hearts content,

Savatiano, Malagouzia and Co.

remnants from the Greek table with Austrian accompaniments.

popular non-PC buffet

A characteristic buffet was provided with food much like that we had seen at the Rencontres de cepages modestes a couple of years back in St. Come d'Olt and reminiscent of French school food we had eaten years ago. Hearty and surprisingly unsophisticated stuff which everyone tucked in to with pleasure,

The whole exercise had been great fun. We had been the only outsiders but were welcomed in a collegiate fashion. Our table had included a younger chap who admitted he came from 'La Biere,' a more senior gentleman who turned out to be an enthusiast planting a vineyard on a site of an 'ancien vignoble francais disparu.' The elegant lady did most of the pouring so we asked her if perhaps she was a Sommelier. That was not the case she said so we complimented he on her way with the bottles to which she only said 'forcement.' Clearly a wine professional.

Connoisseur

Waving goodbye to the genial M. Guigui - mobbed by a great many after the judging - we left on something of a cloud. It had all been a lot of quite serious fun and very French in a good way and no doubt served an important function in selection and marketing of the best that biological wine producers have to offer.

where it all happened, Salon Mas, Paris 13ieme.

See the full list of medal winners from the 2018 competition here:

http://www.concoursamphore.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/palmare%CC%80s-2018.pdf