The Sydney International Wine Competition

The 2009 notification to this spurious event arrived in the post today. Clearly their mail list is defunct, because there is no way I should have received one. It came, however, so in as much as I’ve been a recipient of unsolicited mail, let the following stand as an unsolicited response.

The parchment-style calligraphic invitation listed the Honorary Directors, told me about some sort of degustation menu torture, and added that everything would begin at the Shangri-La Hotel in Sydney. 10am for tastings of all the BLUE GOLD / TOP 100 AWARD WINNING wines followed by a "banquet". The word ‘DRESS’ then appeared.

Leaving aside for one moment that the Sydney International Wine Competition is - like so many wine guessing tournaments - nothing more than a solipsistic revenue raising programme, there is nevertheless the all important dress code, as printed on the invitation:

DINNERS SUIT / TUXEDO / LOUNGE SUIT

I take it that they are not planning to televise this event. It would look like the Logies - only the next morning. Should I wear one ensemble, or all three?

What one wears shouldn't be a concern in Australia; but what one peddles in the name of posh wine analysis is another thing. The invitation's garbled dress code was, it must be said, sign-posted by the invitation's very own fake gold medal sticker. Coming pride of place at the top of the document was the Sydney International Wine Competition's trademark stamp of self-aggrandizement. It is a sticker silhouetting a big-nosed toff glugging wine below an Errol Flynn moustache atop a thin bow-tie. The sticker is trade-marked; but there is no evidence of the responsible service of alcohol. Hence…

…back to spuriousness in it’s most vital wine guise: the Sydney International Wine Competition makes much of its wine-judged-with-food angle. As if judging hundreds of wines in one day is not enough, now one has to do it with a vertical stack of Confit Wagyu Liver just to be sure. I’m hoping that eventually Australia will run out of gullible fuckwits, and there will no longer be an audience, let alone acceptance, of this sort of food and wine insult. Oh, and if you’ve mistakenly not been invited and you’d still like to spend your own money on this epoch-marking event, it’s only $210.00 per person – but they do do corporate table group discount bookings, of course.

Tuxedo events in Sydney during the late summer when the humidity is at 100% and the wagyu cattle are running for their lives… All capped off by degustated wines… I wonder which table Dr. Moreau is on?