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12th Annual |
Judging Instructions
As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
Dear Oyster Wine Judges,
On behalf of Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton Washington, thank you for your help in judging the Finals of 2006 Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition, our annual dating service for West Coast wines and oysters.
*The Final Judgings of 20 finalist wines will take place at the Watergrill in Los Angeles on April 25, One Market Restaurant in San Francisco on April 26 and Anthony’s HomePort at Shilshole Bay in Seattle on April 27. There will be a different random service order in the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle judgings. The scores from the three cities will be combined to determine 10 equal winners of the 2006 "Oyster Award".
*Five veteran Preliminary Judges in Seattle spent a week blind tasting each of 154 entries with over 1200 Kumamoto oysters, then retasting 30 wines with oysters in selecting the 20 finalists you will taste.
*Each wine is tasted with a Kumamoto oyster. Your job is to smell and taste the oyster, chewing it well so that it goes to all parts of the palate, then smell and taste the wine and rate what we call the "bliss factor" or the wine’s affinity for the oysters keeping in mind that eating oysters involves going from one oyster to the next. Part of the bliss factor for the next oyster is a clean finish, a “crisp taste” that doesn’t get in the way of the next oyster.
*We ask the judges not to smell the wine before tasting the oyster so as not to form an impression of the wine before experiencing the oyster. This is a very important aspect of this judging. Imagine yourself out on a chilly oyster bed during a minus low tide in the winter; you pick up an oyster, breathe in the smell of the sea and exposed seaweed, open the oyster and slurp it down. Now you reach for the cold, dry, crisp clean-finishing wine you've brought for the occasion. Now sniff the wine. The aromatic qualities of a good "oyster wine" are consonant with the smells of that oyster bed at low tide and the oyster glistening in its juices just before being slurped off the shell. Once you’ve finished the oyster, smell and taste the wine. Some wines, in both aroma and taste, will work out on that oyster bed; others won’t. The aromatic consonance with the oyster can be just as important as the taste.
*We ask the judges not to talk while judging so as to be fair to the wines being judged, to be fair to the other judges and so judges can focus on the task. You'll find this requires intense (but pleasant) concentration as you look for that knife’s edge of style that pairs with the oyster. We will have some social time and refreshments afterwards. We copy score sheets and give them back to you with the key. The opportunity to compare notes with other judges and a glass of ale afterwards has been one of the highlights for judges in past competitions.
*Going back to that winter beach at low tide, we serve the oysters and wine at the same cold temperature. Oysters are iced an hour before shucking; the wines are served out of an ice bath so they are poured at the same temperature in each city. There is nice textural affinity when wines and oysters are the same cold temperature.
*Wines will be served in flights of five so the temperatures are the same in each glass of each flight. When you are finished with your glass move it to the side, left or right depending on the set up, an indicator to the waiter the glass is ready for pick up.
*We won't start another flight until all judges have completed, or nearly completed, the flight. We urge judges to go with their first impressions of the wines affinity for the oyster and not spend too much time with a wine. Remember we are not evaluating the wine, only how they go with the oysters.
*Taylor Shellfish Farms has supplied 60 dozen Kumamotos to each judging venue. You will be given a dozen on an iced platter to start with. Your platter will be replaced as needed. Each wine should be preceded by at least one oyster. Enjoy! Why Kumamotos? Because they are small. This competition would be physically impossible if we used larger oysters. Kumamotos will also be increasingly available in years to come.
*You will have one column to score wines on a hedonic scale of 1 to 100, or whatever system you want to use. This scoring column is for your use. After you have scored all of the wines we will ask you to rank ten wines in order of preference in the second column (1-highest rank to 10-lowest rank). The scores, weighted by rankings, from the three cities’ judgings will be combined to determine the 10 equal 2006 “Oyster Award” winners.
*The Competition was open to West Coast wines. Five BC, 100 CA, one Idaho, 24 OR and 25 WA wines were entered this year.
I look forward to seeing you.. Try to arrive early so we can get started at 3:00PM. The judging will take approximately one hour if we move right along.
What is an “oyster wine”? Please read the Hemingway quote above and the attached comments from judges in past competitions.
Thanks again for your interest and participation.
Best,
Jon Rowley
www.oysterwine.com
"Oysters are a celebration...romantic, sexy, luminous…
The right wine makes them even more so.” Sheila Lukins