Awards & Wine Medals

What wine medals really mean, and why they matter

There are so many different wines on the market it can make your head spin. It’s almost impossible for the average person to walk in to a store and choose a good quality bottle of wine with confidence.

Or is it?

If a wine has won a medal, you should generally feel certain that it is a good quality wine and has been given credibility from the palates of some of the world’s top wine experts.

Does that mean that you will like a medal-winning wine more than a non medal-winning wine? No, not necessarily. Quality and taste are 2 totally different things.

What-does-a-medal-winning-wine-really-mean

Nevertheless, a medal does mean something for a wine and it’s vineyard.

Wine competition judges are generally very disciplined and follow strict guidlines when tasting wines and awarding medals. Also, they have very talented palates and a keen understanding of what makes a good quality wine.

Typically, wines are tasted “blind” so judges therefore can’t discriminate against or in favor of a wine based on where it’s from or who made it. Additionally, judges usually work in teams, helping to ensure that they mark and rate the wines fairly and honestly.

Whether a wine qualifies for a medal, and whether that medal is gold, silver or bronze, depends on how many points the wine is ultimately given by the judging panel. In general, a bronze medal means the wine has potential – perhaps it will blossom with age or is worth keeping an eye on in its future vintages. A silver medal indicates the wine is something special and worth seeking out. And a gold medal wine has top scores for both quality and character – a must try within its category.

At the end of the day, all that matters is that you like a wine and enjoy drinking it. But at Château Wines Direct, we expect nothing short of top quality from our vineyards, and we are proud to have so many medal-winning wines. It may not mean that you enjoy drinking them any more or any less, but it certainly recognizes all of the hard work and dedication our vineyards put in to making the top-quality wines we offer.

Cheers!

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Mikol Brandis

My interest in wine started 20 years ago in New York City when I took a wine tasting course with Master Sommelier Andrea (Immer) Robinson, one of 32 Master Sommeliers in the world and the first woman to ever be named best sommelier in the United States by the Sommelier Society of America (1997). It was an exhilierating, eye opening experience to say the least, and became the unforgettable beginning of my journey in to the wonderful world of wine. Around the same time, my father and his wife moved from Washington, D.C. to Provence, France, to follow their passion and became wine producers. Over the years, their hard work and dedication to the art of wine making has given me the privilege of being able to get up close and personal, even hands on, with the wine making (vinification) process. There is still so much I want to learn about wine, which excites me! And now, a big part of my journey, which I hope you will join me on, is Château Wines Direct. Cheers!