The International Wine Challenge

When the International Wine Challenge started up in 1984 with a comparative tasting of 50 bottles of wine, its creators Robert Joseph and Charles Metcalfe could hardly have imagined that, 18 years on, it would have ballooned into the world's biggest wine competition with some 11,000 wines. This year's awards, dished up last week with a large serving of mutual backslapping, have been described as "the Oscars of the wine world". Perhaps an annual boost to the ego is justified, but the more level-headed producers appreciate that wine drinkers are rather more concerned with what's in the bottle than whose name is on it.

Long-established wine shows like those in Australia are based on 19th-century agricultural show-judging. The aim was to give the wine industry something to get its teeth into – and still is. As wine writer James Halliday puts it, the show system "promotes the proactive discussion and development of style between the industry's top winemakers in a non-adversarial environment".

What makes the International Wine Challenge different is its focus on the consumer. So how much do you, the consumer, get out of it? Gold and silver medals tend to be an indication of superior quality, bronze medals less so. Wines of the year are chosen from among golds and silvers as the best value examples of their kind. So far, so good. But some genuinely superior wines slip though the net and vice versa. The Nottage Hill and Alamos chardonnays may both be excellent value dry whites, but gold medal standard? Hardly.

You might conclude from the overall results that Australia with 696 medals is a better wine-producing country than France with 580 and Italy in third position with 316. This is a moot point. For one thing, many of France and Italy's top producers don't enter because they already sell all the wine they make. Also, wine judging tends to favour the oakier, more generously fruity styles of the New World. Still, if you do want to line your cellars with trophies and golds, you're going to have to be more than a little nimble on your feet.

INTERNATIONAL WINE CHALLENGE WINES OF THE YEAR

Red

2000 Tatachilla McLaren Vale Shiraz 2000, £8.99 Tesco (from mid-October), Safeway (mid-November).

2000 Merlot Reserva de Gras, Chile, £7.49-£7.99, SWIG, London SW6 (020-7903 8311), Wimbledon Wine Cellars, London SW19 (020-8540 9979).

2001 Jean St-Honoré, Syrah Vin de Pays d'Oc, £3.69, Costcutter, Nisa.

2001 Chianti Cantine Leonardo, £5.99, Valvona & Crolla, Edinburgh (0131-556 6066) Philglas & Swiggot, London SW11 (020-7924 4494); Moriarty Vintners, Cardiff (02920 229996).

2001 Valley Oaks Syrah Rosé Fetzer, California, £5.99, Majestic, Thresher, Wine Rack and Bottoms Up.

White

Alamos Chardonnay 2000, Bodega Catena Zapata, Argentina, £5.99, Oddbins, Majestic.

Hardys Nottage Hill Chardonnay 2001, BRL Hardy, £5.99, widely available.

2001 Winter Hill White, Vin de Pays d'Oc, Foncalieu, £3.49, Waitrose.