International Wine Challenge

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The International Wine Challenge (IWC) is an annual wine competition, which claims to be the largest in the world. The London IWC now has over 9,000 entries. The competition is chaired by Charles Metcalfe, Derek Smedley MW, Tim Atkin MW and Sam Harrop MW. The results of the competition are published as a book and on the internet on the Wine & Spirit Magazine website.

[edit] History

The competiton was launched in London in 1984 by Robert Joseph and Charles Metcalfe, originally as a feature in Wine International magazine.

Joseph and Metcalfe jointly chaired the competition until 2000 when they were joined by Derek Smedley MW. In 1997 Robert Joseph launched the Asia Pacific International Wine Challenge in Hong Kong, followed by the International Wine Challenges of Bangkok, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Hanoi, Tokyo and Moscow. In 2006, following the sale of the IWC and Wine International to William Reed, publisher of Off Licence News and Restaurant magazines, Robert Joseph resigned as chairman to focus on other projects.

[edit] Format of the competition

The competition takes place over two weeks. There are three rounds of blind tasting: groups of eight to fourteen wines of the same style are tasted and scored by 24 tables of 4 judges. Wines scoring more than 84 points out of 100 advance to round two, where they are tasted again and gold medal winners in each style are awarded. Round three is a tasting of gold medal winners to decide on trophy winners. There is no set number of trophies awarded.