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DECANTER WORLD WINE AWARDS 2024

Once again our Castro Martin Family Estate has been recognised for it’s quality. In the extremely tough, well-judged and highly respected World Wine Awards, it has been awarded 92 points and a Silver Medal.

This wine had already received 91 points at a tasting of Spanish Wines in Decanter just a few months ago (so both they, and the wine, are at least consistent!).

Another top accolade of  93 points came from Tim Atkin MW, who also rated the wine as ‘Best value white wine of the year’.

92 points were also awarded by both the Wine Enthusiast (in the U.S) and the Guia Gourmets 2024 (here in Spain). Not a bad haul for one vintage!

The other good news is that we also still have stock of this wine to sell!

Back in April the process for selecting Galicia’s best wines was launched by the Xunta de Galicia. Wineries from every Denomination Ribeiro, Valdeorras, Rías Baixas, Monterrei and Ribeira Sacra, were invited to submit their wines, as well as the ‘Viños da Terra’ from other Galician communities. There were special categories for small, boutique wineries, oak-aged wines, sparkling wines, ecological wines and even ‘toasted’ wines (although I have to admit that I am not entirely clear as to what that last category actually represents, I usually associate this with oak-aged).

A blind tasting of the 405 entries was held in Santiago de Compostela last week, judged by a panel of some 20 experts, including our very own winemaker, Angela. As a member of the official tasting panel of the D.O. Rias Baixas Angela was invited to adjudicate at the event, over a period of 4 days. Naturally each session was divided into regions and categories, and each session comprised of between 20 and 30 samples.

Tastings like this might sound like a fairly glamorous experience, but I can tell you, from my previous life as a buyer, intense tastings like this is actually very demanding, both physically and mentally. To do the job well, and professionally, requires total concentration from the very first wine, to the very last – every wine must be given a fair and equal opportunity, even if your palate starts to feel a little jaded.

I recently made a post about our Castro Martin Family Estate albariño winning a Gold+ Medal in the Distinciones Gallaecia (Guía Luis Paadín de Vinos 2022). Quite naturally, I wrote to my customers around the world to advise them, as obviously this can sometimes help to give a little boost to our sales.

In some countries there used to be, and still is, a fashion to have medals printed onto the labels of award-winning wines. In Australia for example, the culture of wine shows and competitions is very strong, they are held annually in many towns and cities across many States. As a result, a huge number of wines end up with gold medals, and (dependant upon the stature of the show), these can be held in very high esteem. As such, it is quite common to see some wine labels emblazoned with rows of gold medals. (A bit OTT for my personal taste). The problem is that it sometimes can feel like there are simply too many medals on offer, and in the end there is a danger that such accolades become over-used, thereby diluting their credibility.

So, when I wrote to my importer in Australia telling him about this award, he immediately replied by saying “please, don’t print your medal on the label!” To be honest, I actually had no intention, but I did reply by sending him a draft of what I was proposing (see today’s picture) just to test his reaction. I can’t publish his reply…. but it was very funny!

As you will know I have very mixed views when it comes to wine competitions – certainly some are more credible than others. Some years ago, when I was a wine buyer, I remember receiving a mailshot, boldly entitled “Winner – the best wine in the World”. Well, that’s quite a claim, despite the fact that every winemaker on earth probably believes (or certainly should believe) that their wine is always the best in the world! However, it transpires (but only after reading the small print), that this wine was voted the best wine in a small, obscure tasting in Turkey. That’s almost like saying “the best wine in the world” – voted by my mum and her next door neighbour! Well, that’s probably a bit cruel and disrespectful….

Anyway! I had completely forgotten that we had entered one or two wines into a tasting in the autumn of last year. The Distinciones Gallaecia, which is based around a Galician wine guide – Guía Luis Paadín de Vinos, Destilados y Bodegas de Galicia 2022. It is judged locally, only involves Galician wines, and is held in very high esteem in our region. Based on the reputation of this competition we were naturally delighted to learn that our Castro Martin Family Estate wine had not only emerged with a Gold medal, but actually with a Gold+ medal, offered to only the very best wines – perhaps the best in the world!!!

Regular readers might already know that I am not a great fan/supporter of wine competitions. This is simply down to the fact that there are so many variables (beyond our control), that can determine how our wine may or may not be judged, therefore meaning that the whole exercise can be a bit of a lottery.

Of course, should we decide to participate then we have to rely on the organisers, in the hope that they can level the playing field, and make the tasting as fair and as equitable as possible. For example, simply lining samples up in the correct order can have a huge influence on the outcome.

This year (probably owing to the lack of activity in the Bodega) I decided to send off a few samples. Just a couple of bottles of our Castro Martin Family Estate and our A2O brand. The first result, coming back from the Frankfurt International Trophy Competition – TWO GOLDS, one for each wine. Not a bad start!

By the way, did I mention how much I love wine competitions?!

Of course, like every other business we get a lot of spam e-mail (despite all sorts of protection and filters!). Some of these mails are simply annoying, others malicious, requesting that we click onto some spurious link, and then finally, there are the scams. These arrive in many different guises, some quite sophisticated whilst others are downright stupid and obvious. For example, the classic – winning $10 million for a lottery that you never entered!

One of the latest scams, that I receive quite regularly now, is for wine competitions….. Someone has finally twigged that wine competitions are big business, and that there is a lot of money to be made. The problem is the way that it has been done. Quite unconvincing invitations with scant detail, requesting that we pay only 1 Euro deposit to enter, and then pay a full fee after we receive the result. My belief is, of course, that anyone stupid enough to enter, will almost certainly be guaranteed to win an award!

The format is just a simple text e-mail, and thereby lies the second mistake. These invitations arrive in groups, and within a period of 24 hours we will receive invitations for China, Singapore and Japan, all using an identical mail, with only the names and addresses changed in each one. The sponsoring publications for these competitions are quite obvious false – “Shanghai Paper, Singapore Newspaper and Business News Japan”. They don’t even bother to create convincing names!

In a second group of mails, we will receive invites for the UK and USA. This time for the “London Newspaper and America Wines Paper”. Not at all convincing.

Oh, and by the way, the wine samples for EVERY competition, regardless of the country, are apparently gathered in one place…. in Paris. Seems like someone in Paris could be enjoying a big party with free wine!

I keep repeating in my posts that we are not great supporters of wine competitions, and it seems that no sooner have I said this that we win another medal! In fairness I should say to say that we do sometimes submit wines to tastings and publications that we really believe in, or in some instances the tastings that a particular importer might believe is important to their market (or sector of their market). For example, many of of importers work in the hotel/restaurant sector, and so it would make perfect sense to enter our wines into tastings or competitions organised, or perhaps judged by sommeliers from their locality.

In the last week or so we have picked up a further two gold medals (one for each of the two wines that we entered), awarded to us by the Guia Paadín 2020. Whilst many people will not know this particular guide, it is a local entity that focuses entirely on local wines, and is therefore highly respected in our region, and around Spain.

I guess that, in the end, we must be doing something right!

Only a few days ago I said that points and medals were not our ‘raison d’être’ here at Castro Martin. Of course, as luck would have it, just a few days later, we win accolades for two or our wines!

Back in the summer I submitted a couple of bottles to the Wines from Spain Awards, organised by ICEX in London. These awards were quite different in that they were judging all the wines of Spain and not only albariños. Of course, the wines were categorised and tasted in organised flights, but the objective was to simply identify the best wines of Spain, regardless of whether their origin was Catalonia, La Mancha or Galicia.

In the end, there were no Gold, Silver of Bronze medals, just the top 100 Wine from Spain (judged by a few notable MW’s) Result?……

The two wines that we submitted were BOTH voted into the top 100, and we were the only Bodega in Galicia to achieve this distinction!

In recent times I have noticed that a few reputable journalists have started to question our popular, and sometimes long-held beliefs about wine. Some of the doubts being raised are, for example, the use of points to rate wines, and more recently, the development and definition of ‘natural’ wines.

As you may already know I have never been a big fan of wines being rated or categorised by points – there are just too many possible anomalies. Some fear that the worldwide influence of the points system will eventually mean that certain styles will dominate (and possibly all taste that same), and that lighter wines could lose out, simply because they are less likely to get a attract good scores. Wine shop managers sometimes dismiss ratings as overly simplistic — numbers devoid of context, such as a wine merchant’s sense and knowledge of individual customer tastes. Finally, I have to add that over the years, points and medals have occasionally (in a few proven cases) been abused in order to mislead consumers. Conclusion? That the points system just might not be as effective as we have all come to expect.

It is the lack of official regulation or certification for using the phrase “natural wine” that has now created something of an existential crisis. It’s up to winemakers and those who sell, promote and drink their wines to decide whether a bottle fits the ‘natural’ bill. In an effort to distance themselves from this watered-down, misused and sometimes abused term, some producers who truly work with minimal intervention are now turning their backs on this new movement as a whole. For consumers, that only results in further muddying of a term and ideology that’s already steeped in confusion.

In our business we already have organic, biodynamic and sustainable wine making – the first two of these can be certified, and the third simply relies on producers to use common-sense and mindful wine making practices. However, this should not mean that we abandon or ignore the advances in wine making technology that has been made over the last decades – certainly we all want wines with character, but we also want wines that are reasonably stable and will not fall-apart too quickly!

A day of two ago I received an e-mail for the Yuki Wine Awards, or so I thought. It transpires that the guy sending the mail was called Yuki, representing the Japan Wine Awards – unfortunately his mail had a rather unfortunate header! For a moment I understood it to be a competition for makers of ‘yucky’ wines (actually, I could think of a few possible contenders!)

As you may know I have never been a great fan of wine competitions. So far, in the first few months of 2019, we have been invited to no fewer than 22. Inevitably, the vast majority of these claim to be “Important International Competitions”. Whilst I have no doubt that some of them are probably quite important, it really must be a very lucrative business, with the average entry fee, PER BOTTLE, being around €120, with the most expensive being €200 per bottle. From our side, if you take into account the cost of the samples, together with the cost of the international shipping (by far the most expensive element), the cost of entry soon adds up.

It is clear that ‘International Wine Competitions’ have become big business – the entry fee alone, multiplied by thousands of bottles will soon add up to a pretty substantial amount. And, as a former judge myself, I know that organisers always ‘encourage’ a high percentage of medals and award winners (possibly just to encourage producers to keep entering). As you can probably work out, I am still an old sceptic.