Strictly no swallowing for wine judges

"Palate fatigue" is an occupational hazard for wine tasters after 40 or 50 glasses but there is no danger of them getting drunk on the job. The wine is not swallowed. To do so would impair judgment and severely restrict how many wines a taster can test.

Iain Riggs, chairman of judges at the Sydney Royal Wine Show, heads a team of 31 judges, including 15 associates (trainees), at the Showground this week. More than 2300 wines from around the country are under scrutiny for the show.

Mr Riggs said judges were restricted to 40-50 wines at a time in a bid to limit palate fatigue but that professional judges could go all day without losing their ability to detect the nuances in each wine. "They'll spend eight, nine hours doing 150 wines, but they will retaste quite a few so they will end up tasting over 200, 250."

Those making the selections wear white lab coats, clutch clipboards, and the choices before them are a row of partially filled glasses to be studied, tasted and scored on colour and clarity, aroma and bouquet, and palate.

Traditionally, judges come from the wine industry, although Mr Riggs said the background of tasters had changed in his 35 years in the business to include sommeliers, restaurateurs, retailers and members of the media, each bringing a different understanding and knowledge to the task.

"Wine makers are essential because they are trained [and] their job is to look at wine in a technical sense but sommeliers and the restaurateurs and wine media bring a stylistic sense to judging," he said.

Tasting is very subjective and it is impossible to set a standard by which the judges can be judged, but Mr Riggs said a good taster would be "on the ball in terms of matching golds and knows [that what] they're talking about contributes to the discussion".