Wine awards bring fizz back into budget
Value for money, was the message by NOffLA chairman, Jim McCabe. According to him, the Gold Star Awards play a key role in communicating the variety of excellent wines available in Ireland.
“The awards are categorised by price so have gained a reputation, over the past eight years, for being the essential guide for selecting great wines,” said Mr McCabe.
“There is sometimes a misconception that the higher the price, the better the quality of wine. But four of NOffLA’s Gold Star winners retail at under €8 so we are confident that consumers will be able to pick up some superb wines, whether they want to spend €7.99 or €49.99.”
Essentially the Gold Star Awards is an attempt to give a national profile to the eclectic mix of 350-plus independent stores in the association — and thus take on the big supermarkets. But wine-lovers have discovered that the expert panel behind the selection had a habit of being on the money.
Some 600 wines were submitted to the panel led by Tomás Clancy of the Sunday Business Post and Master of Wine Jane Boyce. They (and a team of sommeliers) whittled them down to an eventual 15 wines arranged by price, colour and categories (see table).
The biggest surprise was in the shape of a super sparkling wine — and it couldn’t have been more timely as it was announced just as wine-lovers are going to be looking for good value. The Under €25 Sparkling Wine category is too cheap to accommodate overpriced champagne in any circumstances. But the winner of that category, Codorníu Raventos NV, a traditional Spanish Cava sparkling wine, undercuts even that bubbles-on- a-budget price, and will be selling for just €17.
Codorníu is just one of the wave of Spanish, Italian and Australian sparkling wines taking over from champagne — and maybe they’ll help the recession go with a pop rather than a crash.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
