Feb 28: The 22nd edition of Mundusvini, one of the biggest international wine competitions in the world, spread over two editions every year, saw its Spring Edition come to a successful completion with a record number of over 6,700 entries judged over 6 days, between February 20-25 at the traditional venue, Saalbau in Neustadt on the Wine Street in Germany, writes Subhash who represented India unofficially for the 13th consecutive time and is always impressed by the professionalism and efficiency at the Awards, with jury from 48 countries bringing in their palates and expertise
There have been a total of 6770 wines to judge and there were 270 international experts from 48 countries including India to judge. Italy led with 1730 samples, followed by 1372 from Spain, 764 from France, 707 from Portugal. Surprisingly, Germany had offered only 620 samples, this time, at the 5th position. These 5 countries have been able to contribute 77% of the total samples.
Out of the total 6770 samples sampled, reds are 3685, around 55% while whites are 2075. Sparkling wines are about 8% of the total samples submitted.
The Mundusvini Spring edition was added in the spring of 2014 and is conducted generally during the last weekend of February, ostensibly to help the countries in the Southern Hemisphere submit more samples in the spring edition. However, Australia (154), 
South Africa (140), Chile (116), Argentina (99) and New Zealand (78) have not made a sizeable contribution. While India still did not send any samples, China has also not done much better in this edition with only 8 samples submitted. But surprisingly, the Northern Hemisphere countries like Italy, France, Spain and Germany have welcomed the second edition. It was spread over 6 days with a total of over 150 jurors continuing tasting for both the 3-day halves and about 70 attending either of the two parts, totalling 270 jurors.
The success of this move of adding the second edition may be assessed from the fact that fewer than 3000 samples were submitted during the first such edition-this year they more than doubled, at the record 6.770.
A new welcome feature this year was that on a few occasions, the jurors got an opportunity to taste Award winning wines from the previous edition, during dinners. Moreover, an effort was made to avoid taking jurors to the wineries that are at times 60-90 minutes away and as Christoph Meininger conceded, they felt that it was too much of a travel time to visit just one winery. The competition is owned and conducted by the Neustadt- based Meininger Publications group, perhaps the biggest and oldest group running wine publications, being run by the brother-sister team of Christoph and Andrea Meininger; which hosted a dinner one evening with wines from Franconia.
The genesis of the competition is in the magazine business they have been for 4 generations. The oldest wine magazine in Germany, Weinwirtschaft was started by their great grandfather in 1903. They started several other magazines encompassing wine traders, sommeliers, consumers and other trade people. These include Weinwelt, Sommelier, Fizzz and Meininger Wine 
Business International. These magazines in various wine shops helped them receive a very decent number of 2000 samples during their very first year.
The competition has come a long way since it started. When I participated in the competition for the first time in August 2007, there were only 4925 label samples submitted. But it was still the biggest competition in the world under the tutelage of OIV- the international organisation for vines and wines based in Paris, whose membership includes most of the wine and grape producing regions of the world, including now India. Although the competition is no more involved directly with OIV, it follows many of its adopted policies like no more than 50 wines in a day are tasted. Although it starts bright and early at 8:30 am, the jurors complete the flights of a total of up to 50 wines for which Silver, Gold and Great Gold medals are awarded besides, the special winners in allocated categories.
Results announced within 48 hours
It is commendable that the competition is so efficient that it is known to announce the results within 48 hours of the completion of every competition every time and this time was no different. The 6-day event concluded last Sunday, and the results were announced yesterday, within this stipulated time.
Out of record 6,770 samples submitted from more than 150 wine regions, there were 33 Grand Gold medals, 1,102 Gold and 1,575 Silver medals awarded. Beside the traditional European wine growing countries, several high quality wines from Australia (83 medals), South Africa (45), Argentina (41), Chile (39) and the US (16) were awarded medals at the Spring Tasting 2018. Best producer of Australia was Kilikanoon Wines from Australia with 13 medals, proclaimed as the best Australian wine producer with Grupo Peñaflor as the best producer from Argentina named for its 12 medals.
About 600 of these wines will be poured to the traded visitors at ProWein on March 16-18 in Düsseldorf at the MUNDUS VINI Tasting Area. The wines with special awards will be honoured on the first day of the trade fair at the high-calibre presentation ceremony, and the certificates presented to the vintners in person. If you are visiting Mundusvini, it may be well worth your time to check out the award winning wines.
For complete details of the Results, please visit:
https://www.meininger.de
Subhash Arora
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