Travel - My first time at Mundus Vini, Germany

Impressions of Mundus Vini 2019....

Mundus Vini has grown exponentially since its conception by the Meininger publishing house in 2001. It's importance in Germany, but also across the whole wine is demonstrated by the almost 12,000 samples that are submitted for judigng.

The purpose of the competition is to promote quality winemaking and subsequently their international promotion across the wine world. The awards are intended to offer producers, wine-growers, importers and consumers a forum which, firstly, permits a comparison of wines and offers valuable help with decision-making and orientation when buying wine and, secondly, reaches a wide public.

While welcomed by wine customers as a helpful orientation aid, awards provide producers with recognition of their hard work. They can measure their own standard of performance in international competitions and the awards they win permit prestigious labelling of the successful products for marketing.

2019 was my first experience and was undoubteldy the most professional wine competition I've ever taken part in. A very German approach to attention to detail stood out over and above everything but even so, the quality of the wines was high. There can often be a sense that wineries with good wines don't need medals to help them sell it, yet even though this notion circles all international wine competitions, I can honestly say that in three days judging I never really came across a bad wine.

Dutch importer and all round wine personality Paul Blom made the case for me to be attendance and I was honoured to be amongst just a handful of UK judges. Today the competition boasts over 150 judges spanning five continents and more than 50 nationalities.