The Wine Front International Sangiovese Challenge – WISC – 2012

The Wine Front International Sangiovese Challenge, or WISC as it shall be affectionately known, is an Intergalactic wine tasting event that pits Sangiovese againt Sangiovese from producers who actually want to send wines to be tasted against other like wines.

This is a tasting event like all others except there will be no variety of triangular-cut sandwiches, no entry fees (aside the bottle/s), no shiny medals, no interpretive dance moves from associate judges at a fancy dinner event and all wines will have full notes written about them by the panel, published to Wine Front (www.winefront.com.au). The competition will be run in strict Wine Show style, though there will be no white coats worn, just a selection of colourful hats.

The genesis for WISC was an idle thought after tasting the 2009 Coriole Vita Sangiovese – “This wine would stack up against some Italians, I reckon. I’d like to see how it would go in a blind tasting”, said Wine Front and WISC founder Gary Walsh. A few email requests for samples were subsequently sent to key importers (Negociants, Mondo, Trembath & Taylor, DeJaVu, Red + White and Enoteca Sileno amongst others yet to submit) which resulted in an overwhelmingly positive response. And so the WISC was whirring.

The competition will be held at The Mike Bennie Tasting Facility mid to late August 2012 with the Wine Front boys (Mattinson, Bennie and Walsh) as judges. A guest judge, and esteemed ‘people’s palate’, James Hird owner, influencer and wine collator of Wine Library in Sydney, has been confirmed as the 2012 guest judge.

Gary Walsh and Mike Bennie of Wine Front have selected a panel chair and will take turns sitting on it during the tasting. It more resembles a stool than a chair.

Wines will be tasted in small mixed brackets, with regular breaks involving Parma ham, Reggiano cheese and tins of cold Peroni to re-calibrate tannin abraded palates.

Entries from each country will be mixed through each bracket – we want to find benchmarks and pleasant surprises.

Samples can be sent to -The Mike Bennie Tasting Facility, 15 TRAFALGAR STREET, ENMORE, NSW,2042 – please mark #WISC clearly on the box, supply RRP on the bottles and contact details. One bottle screwcap, two bottles cork. Press releases will be used to stoke the WISC BBQ.