It was so much fun a couple of weeks back to head on up to Manchester and lend my palate and wonderful jokes to the People’s Choice Wine Awards. Started up by Janet Harrison a couple of years back, this years awards saw a threefold upswing on entrants for both the wines and for judging slots…
WINELOVERS CALL THE SHOTS IN ROUND 1
The whole point of these awards is that it’s about wine enthusiasts alongside people who do all this wine judging stuff for a living. All opinions are equal when we’re all drinking the same stuff. Seems fair enough to me 🙂
Round one is judged solely by keen-bean, amateur wine drinkers who have clearly got the palate to know a good wine from the rest. Over 200 people applied to be judges, and those chosen were pitted against categories such as “Girls Night In” and “Pizza Night”, with a major scoring criteria of “would you buy it yourself?”
THE SUPERSTARS JUDGE ROUND 2
I was asked to come and help in Round 2 to finalisethe shortlists for the awards, alongside wine-o mates such as Amelia Singer, Sorcha Holloway, Peter Ranscombe, and Sumita Sarma.
But the judging contingent was boosted by the “superstars” of Round 1, those judges that showed a keen nose, palate, and had no problems getting their opinions out there. As it should be. Was a pleasure to be wedged in between the likes of Dan Doherty and Claire Hearnden.
BRUSHING OF THE TUX FOR AWARDS NIGHT
So the shortlists for the categories are out there, you can get a full view of them in Richard Siddle’s piece for The Buyer.
We’re all just waiting for 25th February up at the comedy Store in Manchester for the awards night. I wonder what I’ll wear? 😉
Cheers
