With difficulty, I must admit. A good couple of month ago I was asked to help to judge wine at the local county fayre. I did not know what to expect as Cumbria is not really the place to grow vine. It turned out to be fruit wines, more like home-made fruit liqueurs that needed some attention.
I have never been to a county fayre before, so I was not familiar with the concept. Having said that, it actually went smooth and without much trouble.
I had a lovely helper, who supplied me with copious amount of water and emptied my spittoon from time to time.
There were some 30 liqueurs in five categories. To be honest the categories were not very well- defined, so there were lots of crossovers. Some bottles in the wine category were more like liqueurs, and the gin liqueur section was overwhelmingly large, compare to others. (Gin seems to so popular nowadays.) You could have divided it into sub-categories, like sloe gin, damson gin, elderflower gin. This was possibly the best class with lots of interesting and great quality items. Unfortunately, some fruit wines were out of condition and re-fermented. What a pity!
No matter what, it was an interesting opportunity and I hope they were happy with my judging.
Photographs by The Tannin Addict.