Wine Champions 2020

Champion Navarra Rosé you say? Colour me interested (and that pink colour!).

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I think our access to insider knowledge is at the exact same level… I just saw on Instagram, the blurb said Champion, I might be wrong.

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Wine, huh, who likes that… it’s rubbish… all of it

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I think that’s exactly right. Things become popular and then some wine makers try to follow the trend and turn up those characteristics to 11. Then the market gets saturated with questionable quality and then anyone who really enjoys wine starts to switch off. Remember when it was ABC (anything but chardonnay).

In recent years I’ve tried to make myself go back to wines that I’ve previously been put off. Try to find the nuggets within the masses. I’d like to think that TWS will be looking for excellent examples of a style not ‘overstyled’ versions. Afterall the judges have sophisticated palates! Plus the wine market is changing all the time so every now and then it’s worth checking back in, although there is certainly a risk of a bottle wasted.

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Absolutely, just thinking of Muscadet as an example, i still hear even wine merchants say they wont touch it, or frascati and orvieto as far too many saturated the market. I will hold my hands up and say that I used to be an “ABC” but god now, I literally love the stuff… well the good stuff anyway. I think unfortunately its the time of NZ SB to be sniffed at because of so many badly made versions. However, when I go to visit my parents, its NZ SB or Alvarinho and thats your lot, but it’s good quality so I enjoy having a glass and to be fair, the best wine on Brew dogs menu if you’re not on beer is a Marlborough SB. :wink:

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I think you’re right. Just seen quite a few posts from TWS buyers on IG with specific bottles.

Just spotted this on the website

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Yes, there’s a Chianti champions case as well

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Yeah I wasn’t sure if it was related due to the title of the case though.

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Would it be more helpful / elitest if I widened the thread to dismiss jammy New World Pinot Noir? it’s unfair that NZ SB gets all the dissing.

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A few more mixed cases have appeared this morning.

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A bit of both I reckon. Always nice to have balance :smirk:

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If you search Wine Champions now you will have 69 hits compared to the 4 hits this morning. Interesting bottles, too.

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Yes, the Liberator sweet muscat is particularly appealing.

Also very curious about the Teroldego 2015.

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Hehe, this was snuck in thanks to Marcel’s latest Glass with Marce video! It was on social media and in the email with the roundup of new articles and features which went out over the weekend.

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Yes, that one took my eye. Don’t know if there any many more to come but some encouraging selections. Also interesting to see where the tasters clearly disagree with existing reviews, Langhe Nebbiolo, Rizzi 2017 is currently languising on 2.2 stars.

Anyone any experience of Champagne Castelnau Reserve Brut NV? Good reviews, not sure where it would fit on that oft shared flavour chart. I like biscuity full champagnes, Bollinger, Society’s Champagne Brut Non Vintage etc.

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The Rizzi Langhe Nebbiolo is s funny one. To be so highly rated by the buyers yet pretty much panned by TWS members suggests there’s something going on there.

I know 2017 was not rated particularly well, but one mitigating factor was that the Rizzi was substantially discounted and highlighted in one of the newsletters. Probably a bit crass for me to say, but if lots of people unfamiliar with Nebbiolo purchased a bottle off the back of that promotion, they might not have been expecting that style and reviewed it poorly.

Whatever the reason, I purchased one bottle at the discounted price, but have hesitated to open it yet because of the poor reviews. I should probably just bite the bullet and make my own mind up. Any other community members tasted this yet?

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I tasted it during my French wine scholar course - very short notes here. It was my favourite of the ones we tried, though they were all tres bon! :ok_hand:

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Those are precisely the ones I put on my wish list…

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This is part of a wider question about wines in tastings vs actually sitting drinking them. I’ve been blown away by wines in tastings, bought some, but when I’ve come to drink a bottle of it, it’s been a much less enjoyable wine. I’ve also had the opposite, where a wine in an artificial environment doesn’t come across well, but in a context of actually drinking it is amazing.

Buy the nature of the process, these wines are all tasted as part of a tasting, so it favours wines that do well at tastings. I think this actually sums up my issues with critics scores too, and they way they favour certain types of wine. It’s not just down to taste, but also the way in which they’re tasted.

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