Surprises at the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards – Fortified wines shine

Canadian wines also sprung a surprise. Seventy-five percent of the entries here won a medal. In contrast, wines from Bordeaux and the Loire Valley performed disappointingly. Only 26 percent of the Bordeaux entries (a total of 148 wines) managed to obtain a medal, and only 38 of the Loire wines received medals, but there were no gold ones.

Jim Budd, president of the Loire panel at the Awards, commented on the results like this: “Of course, we were disappointed that our wines did not present themselves better – compared to last year, their performances were way to weak.”

Only 1.9 percent of the 10.983 entries won a prestigious gold medal. Also another surprise: Australia took the lead with 33 gold medals. Full results of the “2010 Decanter World Wine Awards”, including the category “International trophies”, will be announced on the Decanter website on September 1st. (aw.yoopress)