Royal Melbourne Wine Awards 2013

Royal Melbourne Wine Awards - 2013

This year I decided to help with the Royal Melbourne Wine Awards. This is run by the same organization that runs the Australian International Beer Awards.
I though this might be an interesting adventure, as my knowledge about wine is fairly limited (although I do like drinking it!!).

Bump In

Day 1 of Bump In, had the group of helpers setup racking to hold more than 12,000 (thats right! twelve thousand) bottles of wine. There were over 3100 entries this year, and we had to rack four of each wine.

Once the racking was in position, labels were required to identify "Class", "Exhibit number" and "tasting order".

Next palettes were unloaded, wine bottles labelled and wine put away into the racks. This took the best part of 3 days!

The final bump in activity was to setup the judging area. Tables, glasses etc. Bump in took our group 4 days.

Wine Awards - Judging

Judging went for 4 days.
Wines were put on trolleys and taken out to the front of house steward stations. The stewards poured the wines for the judges.
We prepared nibbles for the judges each morning of the awards

Seven panels of 5 judges spent 4 days judging the 3100 wines.

 A very successful event. A lot of lifting, bending, washing, cleaning, hunting for wine. But fun!

Exhibitor Tasting

A week after the judging is over, there is an exhibitor tasting day. All 3100 wines are presented to the exhibitors for tasting. Setup is done the day before the tasting. Another long, but enjoyable day.

Bump Out

 Bump out went for 3 days. First job was to collect all medal winning wines and pack them in Class. These will be taken to the Consumer Tasting event in a weeks time. Then all the rest of the wine bottles needed to be boxed, put on pallets, and wrapped.
Tables, wine racks, boxes, plates, and everything else needed to be packed up

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Consumer Tasting - Collins Place - Melbourne - Friday 25th October

The last event for me is the Consumer Tasting event. Half a day setup, an evening of serving medal winning wines to ticket paying consumers. Over three hundred happy wine lovers attended this function at Collins Place.
The setup started 4 hours before the event, when all the furniture, wine, fencing needed to be setup

Final Mail Out - Winery Certificates and Result books

The final activity for me for the 2013 Royal Melbourne Wine Awards was the preparation of the final mail out
Each winery received their results, certificates and a catalogue of results.