Awards and Wine - Vintage Performance

While most may think of awards as a leading indicator, they also provide a retrospective indicator of overall vintage variation. This post looks at how well BC's recent vintages fared in gaining Gold/Platinum awards.

Awards lag vintage by at least one year (i.e. 2021 is the first possible Award Year for the 2020 vintage) but normally it takes 4 years for a vintage to substantially pass through the Award cycle primarily due to submission lag on red wines. For instance, in the completed 2021 Award cycle, 51% of awards went to 2018 and 2019 vintages. In the 2022 Award cycle (2 competitions out of 4 so far) this drops to 32%, and the majority of this going to 2019.

While it is far to early to tell how judges will end up rating the 2019-2021 vintages overall, from the past 6 vintages (2016-2021):
- 2016 is the bellwether vintage so far as 2017 has substantially completed.
- 2018 may not overtop 2016 as it would need about 40 more awards in the remaining two competitions this year. Not impossible but, I think, unlikely.

If you are a winery or winemaker in BC, post a comment here if you think the 2016 vintage should be the standout overall champion and whether vintage 2018 or later has a shot at the crown.

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