The Buyer | People’s Choice Wine Awards: knocks ‘stuffiness’ out of wine

It’s only in its second year but the People’s Choice Wine Awards is already shaking up the way national wine competitions are run and what the winning wines mean to the consumers expected to buy them.

As someone raised on Merseyside making a trip to Manchester is always one you take with a sense of trepidation, when you’re ready to pick up on any faults. The buses aren’t as pretty, the pubs aren’t as friendly, the chippies certainly don’t compare and they’ve only got the one cathedral…and that’s just for starters.

But this week’s trip to Manchester left me smiling from ear to ear all thanks to the fun, the energy, the passion and the breath – sorry, make that the wind – of fresh air that is the People’s Choice Wine Awards. It’s a competition that does what it says on the tin. In fact so simple is the concept behind the PCWAs it’s a wonder no-one has thought of it before.

That’s probably because it’s all down to vision of one person and has not been dreamt up in a trade publisher’s boardroom looking at how to squeeze more revenue out of the industry it serves.

Step forward Janet Harrison who first came up with the PCWA concept a couple of years ago,before going on to host the event and first set of awards last year. It is unique in that it involves ‘people’ at all stages of judging and can only go on to bigger and brighter things as it has caught the imagination of those ‘people’ to get even more involved. This year’s awards entries, for example, were 147% more than in year one.

Power to the people

The sheer enthusiasm, and of the so called amateur wine judges is what makes the People’s Choice Wine awards stand out

The ethos of the PCWA is simple: to give consumers the opportunity to vote for the wines they love means that they are at the heart of the process, rather than being disengaged from it.

This year’s awards received over 200 applicants from average wine drinkers who all wanted to have a go, share their likes and dislikes and get involved in the judging. Harrison says it was as hard to select the final group of judges from the initial 200 plus list as it was doing the actual judging itself.

To come up with the awards shortlist the PCWA involves two rounds of judging. The initial round includes a majority of consumers who have been selected via the on-line application process who are helped out by a small team of qualified wine professionals. Round two then sees some of the best tasters from round one – the ‘super tasters’ – join a bigger group of professional trade judges along with the winners of a special WSET sponsored judging competition.

Key trade judges included Kate Goodman of Reserve Wines, and former BBC Food & Drink presenter, the Wine Show’s Amelia Singer, wine journalists Brian Elliott, Peter Ranscombe, Mike Turner (Please Bring Me My Wine), Sorcha Holloway (#ukwinehour) and MW student Sumita Sarma. Goodman and Singer were also on hand at the awards to help co-host the event alongside local comedian, John Warburton.

Cheers to the People’s Choice Wine Awards from Round 2 judges including some well known trade figures and the best of the consumer judges

Another great aspect of the PCWA are the categories. There are none of the by country, by region or grape variety categories you see in most of the major competitions. No, these are all about how and when we drink wine and what we might say when we are drinking them. So there are a host of food friendly categories for wines you would want to drink when you are eating a pizza, having a midweek meal, or a BBQ, a party, or a big blow out.

As the PCWS says: “The terminology and categories have been made easy to understand and meaningful to the average wine drinker. This helps them make better buying decisions and helps retailers understand what their customer wants.”

Then there is the awards trophy. No lalique glass or dull certificates here. Instead you get a bespoke cartoon for your category drawn by Private Eye cartoonist, Tony Husband, and amateur wine judge himself.

“We wanted winners to have something they’d be really proud to hang on their wall,” said Harrison.“Tony’s cartoons fit our ethos of putting the consumer first, knocking the stuffiness out of wine and making a competition that’s relevant to todays wine drinker.”

Walking the walk

Janet Harrison sets the scene and introduces the People’s Choice Wine Awards

This is an awards programme that is walking the walk for how many times has the wine industry claimed it is going to engage with consumers in the way they talk about wine. But how rarely does it.

It certainly makes it a more challenging awards for traditional wine producers and suppliers to enter. Just which of their wines does go with a pizza, or you would be happy to drink at a BBQ?

But for the winners, and the shortlisted wines, it is a great boost to think their wine has had the approval of the great British public and not just trade experts and buyers at the major multiples and on-trade operators.

It was also good to see such a wide range of wines entered. You would expect this kind of awards to be welcomed by the major brands and the likes of Concha y Toro and Treasury Wine Estates were there in force. But there were also plenty of more specialist, smaller producers like Justin Howard-Snyed’s Domaine of the Bee and Bird in the Hand who had entered as well.

If you did not get involved in this year’s PCWA can I urge you to give it a go next year. And even if you are not shortlisted the awards ceremony is one the best nights you’ll have next year.