Cork-popping Vin de Champagne Award competition back in Sydney

The Vin de Champagne Award returns to Sydney to pick a pair of winners to embark on a tour of a lifetime.

1984 Vin de Champagne Award amateur prize winner and now judge Bernadette O'Shea. Picture: Evan Morgan.

It could be a florist from NSW, a manager at a Queensland clinic or maybe a marketing manager from Telstra.

Next Monday, five amateur and six industry contestants fly to Sydney from across the country to vie to win the Vin de Champagne Award, a contest that could prove life changing for the winners.

Finalists will front an expert panel to answer searching questions about the champagne industry and blind-taste three cham­pagnes. Vin de Champagne folk­lore has it that only one winner has ever identified all champagnes correctly.

The two winners will spend two weeks in the world heritage-listed Champagne region of France on an access-all-areas tour of selected champagne houses, visiting ­famous cellars, many off-limits to tourists, and meeting owners and winemakers who will bring up gems from their cellars to enjoy.

To get that far, entrants wrote essays about Champagne’s viticulture, the study of grapes, terroir, the specifity of place and the ­industry’s history.

The winners will be announced at a black-tie dinner on Monday night at Sydney’s Four Seasons hotel, with dinner prepared by Mark Best from Pei Modern, ­accompanied by vintage champagnes from Charles Heidsieck, Perrier-Jouet, Louis Roederer Cristal, Pol Roger among others. French trade commissioner Francois Cotier and consul-general Nicolas Croizer will be present.

Brisbane’s Bernadette O’Shea won the amateur prize in 1984 and is on the judging panel.

“Two lucky people will be on cloud nine that night — it will be marvellous,” she says. “I was a floral designer and I just won this and I was over there on that beautiful tour. I was in seventh heaven — it was paradise. I came back and thought that I would really love to spread the word and teach people about champagne. Now I hold classes and talks and dinners.”

O’Shea, author of the lavishly celebratory champagne guide Champagne & Chandeliers: Grand Dining Celebrations, is the recipient of the Chevalier de l’ordre du Merite ­Agricole, bestowed by the French government, and this week she is scheduled to have lunch with the French ambassador and the consul-general.

“It is so beautiful to see the wonderful acceptance when you are over there,” O’Shea said. “You are regarded so highly that you have achieve the amazing accolade that opens every door for you. They bring up gems from their ­cellars.”

Despite its very healthy local wine industry, Australia’s fondness for the fizz ranks it as the sixth largest export market globally. Last year we imported 8,110,106 bottles of champagne, up 24.3 per cent on the previous year.

The biennial awards are part of a plan to boost the local network of ambassadors who host tasting events around the country.

“After more than 40 years, these awards continue to reveal an intriguingly diverse cross-section of champagne palates, in both the amateur and professional classes,” says ­Elisabeth Drysdale, director of the marketing body and awards ­organiser the Champagne Bureau.

“We are witnessing a growing collective of champagne lovers in Australia, evidenced in the calibre of candidates entering the awards and the ambassadorial work former winners are carrying out in every state.”

The amateur finalists are: Nicky Goodyer, a florist from NSW; Tim Heath, a marketing manager from Telstra; Sara ­Underdown, a corporate writer from South Australia; Nicole Smith, a clinic manager in Queensland; and Michael Solomons, a club executive from NSW.

The six professional finalists are: Peta Baverstock, cellar door manager from Loaves & Fishes in South Australia; Samantha Faircloth, area manager of Negociants Australia in Queensland; Kara Maisano, sommelier at Masani Italian dining and terrace in Victoria; Anja Lewis, wine consultant at Canny Grapes in Western Australia,; Cameron O’Keefe, sommelier at Centra in Victoria; and Saskia Valenti, of Western Australia’s Jane Brook ­Estate Wines.

O’Shea is specific about what she is looking for in a winner.

“A person with a very good knowledge of champagne, also a palate. And an understanding, to show through the blind tasting not necessarily they can identify the wine but how they came to that conclusion.

“Also, that they will be a good ambassador for champagne — they will be the top two palates in the country and do us proud when they are over the other side of the world in my spiritual home.”