I have already written this year about wine competitions. I don’t like them. I wrote a column saying so. In that diatribe I attacked wine competitions for being flawed, for being marketing tools, and for promoting an attitude toward wine that is simple and downright silly. I also said I would leave the topic alone for the rest of the year. You will have to call me a liar. My inbox is starting to become flooded with press releases telling me how some wine or another has picked up some or other coloured sticker from one of the many competitions that are currently releasing results. As these press releases give such import to these competitions I thought I would try again to write a column that shows these competitions in a positive light, that shows how useful they are.

(Oh, before I get started: as a follow up to this column I will be chatting to Christian Eedes – former editor of Wine Magazine, now freelance wine writer, judge, and commentator – on 2oceansvibe Radio next week Thursday at 10h50 to chat about his judging on the Old Mutual Wine Awards, and wine competitions in general.)

Instead of ripping into these competitions again, I thought I would try to find a few ways that they can be of use to you. The first rule is to not just accept the results, and buy whatever wine has a gold little sticker. Your first task is to identify the wine competition you find most useful. How you do this is up to you. It’s just trial and error I am afraid. Personally I would suggest the International Wine Challenge, and the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. Those are the one I give the most credence.

Then check the results online to see if you can find some new wines to try. Don’t be a cad, and get all pleased with yourself because one of the wines you normally drink has a medal. Don’t buy it and drink it in a congratulatory manner. Don’t feel pleased with yourself, you didn’t make it. TRY SOMETHING NEW.

Obviously cross check the results. Check to see if a single wine is killing it across different competitions. This points toward quality. Different judges, on different days and under different conditions judging the same wine highly is a pretty good reason to try the wine. This doesn’t happen often, as different judges, different days and conditions generally mean results are so varied the results are looked at by some as having very little (other than marketing) value.

Public tastings. One of the great things about wine competitions is that it gives the public a chance to taste a set of wines that are grouped together purposefully, rather than, say, those massive tastings like the Jo’burg Wine Show, and WineX. They are filled with so much average wine that the crowds you have to fight through – the perfumed hoi-polloi you have to elbow past to taste the handful of good wines on show – is hardly worth it. At least with the wine competitions there is a filter. You may not agree with the filter, but that disagreement itself is interesting. The Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show is particularly good as there are always some older wines available to taste – which is an opportunity more South Africans need to take up. These are taking place next month and we’ll have a few tickets to giveaway from this column, and on my next feature on HardWilli in the Morning on 2oceansvibe Radio.

So there are good things about wine competitions. They can sort of help you choose a good wine. They can give you a chance to taste wines that experts decide are good. And, you know, the stickers are also useful, because after buying them you can carefully peel them off and:

• Use them as nipple caps.
• Seal your envelopes.
• Stick up your new car license disk.
• Cut them and half and use them as earrings.
• If really stuck, use a bronze medal as a bindi.
• Save up a few gold ones and use in a belly dancing costume.
• Use them to tape up reminder notes on your fridge.
• Tack it onto a wineglass to mark it as yours during a dinner party.
• One could make a terrible bookmark.
• Stick it on your face and sunglasses when going to trance parties. (Why they do this at all confounds me.)
• Use it to reseal your bag of tobacco.
• Stick them onto all the wines in your cellar without stickers.

So you see, wine competitions are useful. Do you have an idea of what to do with your wine bottle stickers? Add your idea below, and the best one by next week’s column will win themselves a pair of tickets to one of the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show’s public tastings (Jo’burg or Cape Town).