1. New ways of doing the usual things
The International Contest Eurasia Wine and Spirits Competition held under the patronage and according to the regulations of the International Organization of Vine and Wine (O.I.V.) at its 2019 edition in Chisinau, Moldova for the first time used Gustos.Life software — a specially designed IT solution for organising and conducting wine tasting activities during professional contests.
Besides being strictly compliant to all official O.I.V recommendations for each and every detail of the tasting methodology and process, the digital wine tasting solution assured a certain number of extra advantages:
● Maximum simplicity of the wine tasting event organisation and results tracking;
● Elimination of the possibility of errors arising from manual data processing;
● Maximum transparency, trustability and security of the tasting results, as the wine scores are stored using blockchain technology and can be cryptographically audited anytime;
● Compatibility with any computer device with internet connection including smartphones;
● High efficiency, as filling out tasting cards in electronic format made possible an instant results processing and calculation;
● Advanced reporting features, granting a fast and easy access to contest results for organisers, judges and participants.
2. Methodology meets technology
The O.I.V. standards for international wine and spirituous beverages competitions are one of the most strict and comprehensive among several other guidelines and methodologies commonly used worldwide.
Gustos.Life software offers the whole set of digital instruments precisely compliant to each and every aspect of the regulations. The organisers and designated O.I.V. expert commissioner overviews all the steps of the operational steps of the event, starting with participants and samples registration and ending with final results calculation.
O.I.V. scoring methodology is one of the several 100 points scale scoring systems like Robert Parker, Decanter, Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast etc. The main differences between them are the organoleptic characteristics taken into consideration while tasting a sample and the weighting of each criteria in the overall score. For example, the Parker scoring system for still wines implies a minimal score of 50 points and a 40% weighting of the Taste criteria, while the O.I.V methodology for the same type of wines has a minimal score of 40 points and a 44% weighting of Taste.
The detailed information about the weight of each primary and secondary organoleptic characteristic according to Resolution OIV/Concours 332A/2009 for each of the 3 main categories of samples — Still Wines, Sparkling Wines and Spirituous Beverages:
Following this standard regulations, Gustos.Life software offers an approved Wine score sheet model for each of the categories of the sample.
Each sample is rated based on the average of the scores resulting from the calculation of appraisals from each of the jurors while the figures which differ by more than seven points ranging from the average rating are not taken into consideration while calculating the final sample score.
In certain cases a sample may be eliminated due to a major defect. When a wine or a spirituous beverage is marked «eliminated» by at least two jurors, the sample under no circumstances receives an award by the jury.
3. Participants and Samples
The Eurasia Wines and Spirits Competition 2019 featured 361 samples submitted by 75 producers from 13 countries, such as United Kingdom, Slovakia, Italy, Russian Federation, Georgia, Romania, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Republic Of Korea, Czech Republic, Portugal, Montenegro and of course the home country of the event — Republic of Moldova.
Thow more than 60% of the samples where submitted by local producers, several other countries like Czech Republic, Italy, Georgia and Slovakia also brought to the event a notable number of products:
Traditionally, most of the submitted samples were Still wines, as the combined number for samples from other categories — Sparkling wines and spirituous beverages were less than 75% from the total.
More than 65% of the tasted wine samples were wines of the recent 2 years of harvest, the jurors had the opportunity to appreciate 13 truly rare wines from 10 up to 24 years old.
The spirituous beverages category also had really unique — 25, 35 and even 50 years old samples.
4. Commissions and Jurors
During Eurasia Wines and Spirits Competition the wine sample tasting was divided into 8 commissions (4 commissions per day). Each commission consisted of 7 jurors of whom only 3 where local, while the rest — international specialists.
During both days Competition a combined number of 35 jurors took part in the wine evaluation activities, representing 14 countries: Moldova, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Russian Federation, Germany, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Republic of Korea.
The O.I.V. expert commissioner during EAWSC 2019 was Valeriu Cotea (Romania), who also took part in wine tasting activities and assured the compliance with international standards.
5. Awards limitations
O.I.V. standards have a section regulating the score ranges for award granting, but leave the Event Organisers a relative freedom in adjusting them.
The EAWSC Regulation implies a slightly stricter score requirements for granting Gold medal, has an additional Grand Prix award for samples that scored above 96 points but at the same time doesn’t grant any bronze medals at all.
During the Competition the samples are divided into groups (nominations), for example, in accordance with beverage type, sugar content, content of CO2, content of alcohol, wine colour and vintage. In each of this groups the sum of the awards must not exceed 30% of the total of samples presented in each group. In case when the total number of samples that scored high enough exceeds 30%, the samples having received the lowest scores are not taken into account.
This was exactly the case for EAWSC 2019, when the Competition Award List including 2 Grand Gold awards and one Grand Prix is 3 times shorter than the actual list of samples worthy of an award and more than 200 very good samples didn’t get any reward at all.
6. Final Scores
In order to make this report as accurate as possible the data charts below will be calculated on the overall medal-worthy samples (score 80 points and above) and not the actual EAWSC award-winning list.
