A trying quest for the best

It had been a hard day. The judging panel at last week's Wines of the Pacific Rim had sipped their way through 900 wines, including a score of young, acidic sauvignon blancs and a range of bubblies. It was time for a proper drink.

'Five glasses of fresh milk,' pleaded Greg Melick of Sydney. 'And a glass of water with bicarbonate of soda,' added Bob Campbell of New Zealand.

A morning of sipping and tasting fresh young sauvignon blancs, packed with high acid content as well as fruit and flavour, can play havoc with the digestion. These august wine judges, palates honed by decades of tasting wines, try not to swallow the wines during their relentless nine-hour working days; inevitably some slips down.

Over a soothing glass of milk, the judges agreed the standard of the wines they had judged this year was high. The 900 vintages came from every wine-growing region around the Pacific, from the cool valleys of British Columbia and Washington to the blazing arid inland of South Australia.

'There's plenty of variety,' said one of the WinPac veterans, Barry Burton, chairman of the Hong Kong Wine Society.

As we chatted, the eight-man panel had no idea which wines had won the coveted medals. Around them in a Furama Hotel ballroom were hundreds of bottles, all shrouded to hide their identities.

The judges know only the numbers on the bottles. Who makes it, what grapes are used and where it comes from are unknown to them. They have to slurp and spit and give points for colour, aroma and taste. Only when the exhaustive tasting tests come to an end and the points are tallied will the winners be known.