A Story About Verdelho
Wednesday, 4th October, 2006
- David Farmer
Verdelho has a long history in Australia and was probably being used to make wine by the 1830's in the Hunter Valley. It is believed that some of the vine stock came from the Island of Madiera, from France and from the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) where European vines date back to the 1650's.
Until the 1960's verdelho was mostly used to make fortified wines but slowly its worth as a wine grape was acknowledged. Tullochs and Moondah Brook Verdelho both developed a loyal following. More recently excellent examples have come from the Riverina district centered around Griffith. It is turning out to be a most useful variety in our warm growing regions where it maintains flavour and acidity.
Thus it comes as a surprise to read the comments of the judges at the recent Riverina Wine Show, Class 5 Dry White Verdelho, 2006 vintage; "This is a fortified variety that mostly lacks the flavour to make good varietal dry whites. Best examples were assisted by skillful blending."
Of the 27 entries the top score was 17.0 and the lowest score was 13.7 which equates to a spread on the 100 scale of 68.5 to 85. This is very low scoring and reinforces the point that perhaps specialist judges who know the potential of particular varieties should be judging these varieties.
I have long had suspicions of judging and judges - are they competent enough to swing from one variety to the next with no loss of ability?
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