"The Japan Wine Challenge was set up in 1997 as an independent wine competition, showing the wine world that Japan is a vibrant wine market to be taken seriously. During this time we have grown in scale and scope to the point where we are the largest and most respected wine competition in Asia.

With the appointment of Steven Spurrier as Chairman in 2001 and a solid partnership developed with the Institute of Masters of Wine, the Japan Wine Challenge has also created a platform for developing local Japanese wine tasters into serious wine judges. We have also formed a great relationship with the Madame Bollinger Foundation which over the past 5 years has provided a Japanese wine judge with a scholarship to attend the Institute of Masters of Wine summer school in Australia.

We are delighted to announce you that 13th Japan Wine Challenge will take place from Tuesday 13th to Thursday 15th July 2010.

We are honoured to have continued Chairmanship of Steven Spurrier (Consultant Editor, Decanter Magazine) and Co-Chairman Lynne Sherriff MW who is a Deputy Vice Chair of the Institute of Masters of Wine, and again looking forward to some outstanding wines and results. Our continued association with the Institute of Masters of Wine, the San Francisco International Wine Competition and our team of expert judges (both international and local) ensures that all wines are given the optimum evaluation by a truly international and professional judging panel.

Chairman's Welcome
Steven Spurrier
hIt is with great pleasure that I welcome you to participate in the 13th Japan WINE Challenge in 2010. Having been Chairman since 2001, I have seen great improvements in the overall standard of wine entering Japan, and indeed the increase of confidence that the wine trade and consumers have. The Japan WINE Challenge is the biggest and most significant international wine competition in Asia. Winning an award here is recognized throughout the wine world as well as helping to ensure positive sales results in Japan.h

Menu
Introduction
Comments from our International Judges/The 2009 Judges Line Up
Comments from Entrants/Benefits of Japan Wine Challenge
The Partners
2010 Schedule
Entry for 2010

 
Introduction

Our Vision for 2010

Retail Section
2010 marks the 13th consecutive JWC and promises to be the most exciting and innovative wine competition seen in Asia. We are continuing to focus on expanding the retailer involvement and in turn this will assist in getting the education message across to trade and consumer. In 2007, we asked award winning wineries to advise details of their top retailers in Japan - wherever this information was received we incorporated it in our JWC magazine. Since 2008, we asked all entrants to give us the same information in advance. This enables us to establish which retailers in Japan are most relevant to developing the premium credentials of international wines in the retail market. It will also allow us to give "JWC Retailer Awards" to those retailers which have the greatest number of JWC entries on their shelves. After the judging is completed, we plan to also give a further award of "Best Japan Retailer" to the retail outlet in Japan which (based on the information supplied by entrants) has the greatest number of award winning wines.

* JWC Retailer Awards
Depending on the information received from entrants, these could be awarded to 3-5 retailers in Japan.

* Best Japan Retailer
One award to the store which (based on the information given to us by entrants) has the most award winning wines.

* Best Discovery Award
In order to encourage wineries whose wines are not yet present in the Japan market, we will introduce a "Best Discovery Award" - this will be given to the wine not currently represented in Japan which in the opinion of the judges has the best potential in the Japan market.

* Best Value Award
We will have one award/category only, comprising wines with an actual retail price in Japan of less than \2,000.

 
Awards Ceremony & Gala Dinner and Charity Auction

- Friday 16th July 2010 at Grand Hyatt Tokyo-
We will have this year's our Awards Ceremony on Friday 16th July at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo. HIH Princess Takamado has graciously agreed to be present for this very special occasion, and to make the top awards. In addition, some of our international and Japanese judges will attend in order to directly communicate on the Japan Wine Challenge with all those attendings. For this purpose, we propose to use one bottle of the Trophy, Gold and Silver-award winning wines, so that these can be featured at the event. To this end, we have decided to ask participants in this year's JWC to submit one more sample bottle, making a total of 4 bottles per entry.

Entry Kits are distributed to thousands of companies worldwide inviting them to submit their wines. All information received on every wine to be tasted is inputted into the computer. Once this information is logged the process begins of sorting out the wines themselves.

The wines are "flighted": placing entries into groups of 12-18 wines. The style of each flight is partly dictated by the wine and its likely complexity. Bottles are then wrapped in special "co-extruded" WINE bags and tagged.

The judges arrive and are split into tasting teams. The teams usually consist of 5 judges - predominantly Japanese wine authorities with one or two of the visiting international judges.

The tasting notes are then recorded in both English and Japanese, listing the full list of winning wines.

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