How do we score or wines?
All of our wines are masked so none of our experts know what the wines are, then let loose on them, with scores out of 100. All scores are then averaged, and the score will be removed of any person who is involved with one of the masked wines (stops me giving any Koonara wine a high rating if I can pick them in the line-up!). Scores are discussed if there is a judge with an unusually different score from the other judges.

Taste Twice: What is different than most wine reviews is we taste the wines for the second time -usually with food - to see if they have opened up. Many top wines have such tight tannins that sometimes it takes an hour or so to see their full potential.

Food Matching: 99% wines will be tasted with & without food, and scores adjusted accordingly, helping evening out scores by wines which may be quite sweet (i.e residual sugar left in the wine). Many score will say "better with food". This is by no means a bad thing, only that it may be more of a savoury style (or sometimes referred to as "European style")

Some wines may not appeal to some of our judges, but may match superbly with certain flavours.

Length: This is how long you can taste the wine in your mouth after you have swallowed it. Great wines leave an immensely favourable taste in your mouth minutes after you have swallowed it. As Jancis Robinson (Master of wine) once said, it's cheaper to buy better wine, because you don't need to drink as much of it to get the same flavour.