Wine Opinion | Tasting and judging wine is more difficult than it might appear

These days it seems everyone wants to be a wine judge. I get it. Who can resist the lure of plucking a leggy red from the crowd, or dating a vivacious blonde?

Alas, being a wine buff does not automatically make one an astute judge. Judging takes dedication and practice. Palates are refined by years of repeated and focused wine tasting. Tasting and judging dozens of wines per day is surprisingly hard work. Groan all you like, but imagine having to convince your weary palate to discern the hundredth wine as precisely as the first. After all, judges must be as fair and perceptive to all entrants.

Judging involves evaluating flights of wines in a variety of competition classes. A horizontal flight is a range of wines with common characteristics, typically of the same grape varieties, origin and vintage. Vertical flights are comprised of wines from different vintages. Depending on the competition, flights are made up of a few glasses to a daunting array in the hundreds. There is a limit to the number of wines a person can taste in a day before we get palate fatigue.

That limit is about 140 - a number the Australians established to ensure judges can still sensitively discern the aroma, structure and quality elements of each glass. Gone are the days where judges were asked to taste 180 shiraz in one day. Recently, I judged a show in Guangzhou with a comfortable 60 wines to appraise. A walk in the park.

As well as individually working on our craft, judges learn from one another. As judges become better acquainted, we share best practices and learn tasting tips and insights from one another. One judge will share the latest on Elgin's crisp whites and another will explain Georgia's "amber" wines. Perhaps it's this camaraderie that appeals to aspiring judges. There is even a Hong Kong Wine Judges Association where Hongkongers practise judging in the hopes of entering the show circuit.