A team from Malta will participate for the first time in the World Tasting Championship organised by the Revue du Vin de France.
The event, now in its 12th edition, will be held at Château Dauzac in Margaux, near Bordeaux, France, on October 12. The competition expects to welcome 40 international teams.
The team
The team, named Wine Knights, is composed of four members and a coach: William Rizzo, owner of Kontrada Merchants and candidate ‘Master of Wine’, the highest qualification in the wine industry; Marco Trucco, founder of the team and candidate for the Diploma of the Wine&Spirits Education Trust (DipWSET); Pierre Finger, who holds the WSET Advanced and represents Gozo; and Andrea Fornuto, winner of the Open Qualification event.
The coach is Aaron Rizzo, DipWSET and educator of wine and spirit courses at the Institute of Tourism Studies (ITS).
The group, sponsored by the Malta Tourism Authority, has trained for several months with the support of local businesses that offered a range of wines to taste: Farsons Direct, Charles Grech, Attard & Co. and Kontrada Merchants.
How the championship works
During the championship, teams are tasked with identifying the grape variety, country, region, appellation and vintage of 12 different wines.
With over 100,000 wineries globally, thousands of grape varieties and numerous wine styles, competitors face the daunting task of pinpointing the correct wine from among millions of possibilities but seasoned tasters often come impressively close.
Rising popularity
Blind wine-tasting competitions are gaining popularity among wine enthusiasts and have also captured the attention of the film industry.
In 2021, the documentary Blind Ambition, which followed Team Zimbabwe’s journey at the championships, won the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.
In 2023, Apple+ premiered Drops of God, a high-profile series inspired by a dramatic wine-tasting challenge.
The World Tasting Championship will be streamed online here.
More information about the event, including a feature on the Maltese team, is available at www.worldtastingchampionship.com/.