Last year, Gov. Terry McAuliffe presented the 2016 Governor's Cup to Charlottesville-based Keswick Vineyards for its 2014 Cabernet Franc Estate Reserve. (Photo by Stephanie Breijo)
[Update: The winner of this year's Governor's Cup goes to The Barns at Hamilton Station Vineyards' 2014 cabernet sauvignon. "Our team is especially proud of this wine. It is a classic Virginia Cabernet Sauvignon. Perfectly balanced, and has mature tannins that are ripe but not overly extracted, and it has nice acidity,” Michael Shaps, the winemaker, says in a news release. “The fruit comes from mostly Carter’s Mountain with some additional fruit from Mount Juliet vineyards. Carter’s Mountain has southwest exposure, constant breezes, great drainage and a slightly cooler climate to retain nature acidity.”]
Unless you've been under a very large oak barrel, you know Gov. Terry McAuliffe is passionate about his spirits. Wine, beer or liquor, our governor is a vocal supporter of the benefits the industry supplies to our state. And it’s February, which means that it's wine’s time to shine during the annual Governor’s Cup, a prestigious awards ceremony wherein panels of experts taste Virginia-made wines, presenting their 12 favorites to the governor himself. The winner of the coveted large gold trophy is selected by Gov. McAuliffe, who'll announce the victor this evening at the Virginia Governor’s Cup Gala.
If you've ever wondered exactly what goes into the judging of this award, we chatted with Bartholomew Broadbent, a second-generation master sommelier and number 48 on Into Wine's "100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry" list in 2013. He, and other notable members of the wine industry, judged this year's contenders, and loved the results.
Richmond magazine: How does this all go down?
Bartholomew Broadbent: The Governor’s Cup is an annual judging competition to select the top 12 wines [that] go into a Governor's Case, and one final wine will be the Cup winner. But along the way, they also give medals of gold, silver and bronze to a bunch of other wines, which make it through two rounds of tastings, one of which is a preliminary round with certain judges [from] around the country, and they eliminate the wines that aren’t yet up to medal standards and proceed to recommend the wines that [make it] to the final. Those are then deemed medal winners; of those that will get medals, most of them will at least [win] bronze because of the preliminary round.
RM: Do you know how many wines were tasted in your portion of the judging, during the final round?
Broadbent: Not exactly. There were about 40 the first day, 80 the second day and about 40 the third day.
RM: You tasted 160 wines in three days?
Broadbent: Yes, about that. We mix it up, and because we are all professional tasters, we can drink white wine after red wine. We do it in flights. In one flight, there could be only two wines. In another, there could be eight. Probably eight is the biggest flight, and those flights will be of like-minded wines, like Petit Verdot or Cabernet Franc. There was one flight that had cider and mead in it.
RM: Is this a completely blind tasting?
Broadbent: Completely blind. In fact, we do not know what we have tasted. We won’t know until the results are released at the governor’s mansion or wherever they will hold the awards ceremony. And the governor will announce which wines are in the Governor’s Case. The wines selected for that get sent out to the press not just locally but nationally — so it is good publicity.
RM: How many judges are there? Are you all in the same place? This is eight hours per day? Twelve hours? All night long? Tasting and spitting, correct?
Broadbent: [In the final round], the are about 15 of us. We are in a room seated around a table that is horseshoe-shaped. It starts about 9 a.m. and ends about 4:30 p.m. There are two wines that I decided to swallow; I couldn’t spit them out. We write notes on a scorecard and circle certain indicators, and we give the wine a score: From 80 to 84 points is a bronze medal, 85 to 89 is a silver and all above 90 points get a gold medal.
RM: Who are some of the other judges? Are you able to tell me?
Broadbent: The organizer is Jay Youmans. He runs the Capital Wine School in Washington, D.C. There are many well-known judges: Barbara Ensrud; Gus Kalaris, a distributor in Maryland; Dave McIntyre, a writer at The Washington Post; etc.
RM: Do you collaborate while judging?
Broadbent: No, not really. It is done in silence. It is a pretty boring thing to do. It is very mechanical. [To] anyone that thinks wine tasting is fun, I would say, get a better life.
RM: Wine drinking is fun!
Broadbent: Wine drinking is certainly fun. How to ruin a passion for wine is to join the wine business.
RM: How did you become a part of this?
Broadbent: I was asked by the Wine Exposition to do a tasting of benchmark wine around the world as compared with Virginia wines. Basically, Virginia wines showed really well. I am very, very enthusiastic about Virginia wines. And I’ve a decent reputation in the wine business, so they invited me to participate.
RM: Of the 160 wines you tasted, what percentage would you say were above average?
Broadbent: I would say 95 to 98 percent of them were above-average wines. To be excellent wines and get a gold medal, I would say half of them got gold-medal status. Virginia, along with Oregon, Washington and California, is making some of the best wines in America. The diversity and the quality of wines put it in the top four.
RM: Was there a particular grape or vintage that stood out?
Broadbent: The wine we tasted this week wasn't necessarily from one vintage; we don’t know what vintage it is. But that standard of this wine was similar to me to about four years ago, where the standard was very high. The wines in general were extremely high-quality; what impressed me the most were the Petit Verdots, the Cabernet Francs, the Meritages. The dessert wines were delicious.
The 2017 Governor's Cup winners will be announced this evening at the Virginia Governor’s Cup Gala. For more information, see virginiawine.org/governors-cup.
