Launch of WineStyle People's Choice Awards

© Kirill Kedrinski - Fotolia.com

A panel, consisting of a professional wine-tasting judge, a person in the wine industry and two wine drinkers with good wine knowledge but no professional training, will judge the wines. The wines will be tasted 29-30 October and released on 11 November 2014.

Flights will be no longer than 10 wines. Wines will be tasted blind and the panel will be told what varietal / blend category they are tasting as well as the price category (retail price):

• Below R40
  
• R40 - R70
  
• R70 - R100
  
• R100 - R150
  
• R150 and above

Each wine and score will be discussed until a consensus is reached about the score of the wine. There will be a calibration tasting before panels commence. The scoring, out of 20, will be 10 for the wine, 5 for the value and 5 for the overall impression. The top 30% of wines entered in the competition will get a "WineStyle recommends" sticker, scored as follows:

• Wines receiving 18 points and above will get a Double gold medal and sticker
  
• Wines receiving 16-17.5 points will get a Gold medal and sticker
  
• Wines receiving 15-16.5 points will get a Silver medal and sticker

The entries will be confidential and only winning entries will be published.

Benefits for consumers

Consumers will now have a competition that they can follow that is targeted directly to them. They drink wines tasted by like-minded people and not necessarily by wine professionals who have a different (possibly more sophisticated) palate. Winners will receive stickers for their bottles, which the consumer will recognise and wines that they will like. There will also be a bi-annual tasting of all the winners, where consumers can buy the wines as special prices, where the producers comes face to face with people that drink and enjoy their wines

Benefits for producers

The producers get to market their wines directly to the consumer: tasted by the people, for the people. Stickers will be provided to all winners. Winners will be featured in the WineStyle magazine with an in-depth article on the competition, as well as other selected magazines, blogs, and websites and winners will be featured in the WineStyle People's Choice awards catalogue. Wines must be entered before 24 October 2014. To enter, go to www.wine-style.co.za.