{"id":23507,"date":"2020-03-14T16:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.xtrawine.com\/?p=23507"},"modified":"2020-03-23T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T08:42:13","slug":"the-2020-tre-bicchieri-awards-how-it-works-and-some-of-the-big-italian-wine-winners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.xtrawine.com\/en\/the-2020-tre-bicchieri-awards-how-it-works-and-some-of-the-big-italian-wine-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2020 Tre Bicchieri Awards \u2013 How it Works And Some of the Big Italian Wine Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Have you heard of the prestigious Tre Bicchieri awards?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year, an organisation called Gambero Rosso hands out these awards to the best and brightest of the Italian wine industry. Those that receive such an award are generally given the distinction of being some of the best wines to come out of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just imagine what that means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italy produces literally thousands of vintages of wine every single year. Every region in the country has dozens, if not hundreds, of producers. And most of these producers split their efforts between multiple vintages of wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With so many to choose from, having the distinction of a Tre Bicchieri means that your wine is guaranteed to stand out from the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point we\u2019re making is that receiving a Tre Bicchieri is a distinct honour. And each year, Italian wine producers wait to see if their vintages happen to have gained one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent round of awards took place in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Gambero Rosso tends to jump a year ahead when giving its awards. That means the 2019 winners are actually the Italian wines that the organisation recommends for the year 2020!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll look at some of the wines that received the prestigious award in a little while. First, let\u2019s check out the review process that Gambero Rosso uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Review Process<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gambero Rosso takes its responsibility for choosing the very best wines to come out of the country extremely seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each year, the organisation creates several panels of well-credentialed experts in Italian wine. These are sommeliers and other industry influencers who you could consider the cream of the crop when it comes to their understanding of the vine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, before any of these panel members even sniffs an Italian wine, Gambero Rosso goes through a period of accepting submissions. Entry into the awards is open to wines from all 20 of Italy\u2019s wine<\/a> regions. Furthermore, the awards allow entry to wines from Canton of Ticino. This is an Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, which has a tendency to offer up some of the more unique wines of the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gambero Rosso then splits its panels of experts into local, regional, and national groups. Every single wine that gets submitted goes through all three groups as part of the testing process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, let\u2019s say that a wine comes from the Tuscany region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local panel will be made up of people who understand the wines that come from the specific town or city where the wine was produced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regional panel will be made up of people who have in-depth understand of the Tuscany region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, the national panel represents a broader base of experts who can compare the wine to other great wines from different regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we can see just how broad the range of expertise is on these panels and just how much a wine has to go through to make it to the final round of tastings (we\u2019ll get to those in a moment).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of all of this, every tasting takes place blindly. This means that the taster has no idea what wine they\u2019re drinking or who produced it. The goal here is to reduce any sort of unconscious bias that the taster might have that could influence their decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s only after the panel unveils their scores that they learn about the wines and their origins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, after making it through the regional stages, an Italian wine will go onto the final round of tastings. This take place in Rome at Gambero Rosso\u2019s headquarters. Only the wines that achieved the highest scores from the regional tasting events have any chance of making it to this final stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, the wine will go through a round of blind taste testing. Only this time, the most prominent experts at the event will be judging the wine. Each awards the wine a score out of 100 after tasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those scores then get averaged out. And only those that achieve an average score of 90 or higher get the coveted Tre Bicchieri award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let\u2019s say there are five people on the national panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They taste a wine and give it the following scores:<\/p>\n\n\n\n