The Concours Mondail du Sauvignon goes digital

At its ninth edition in Graz on March 2 and 3, the Concours Mondial du Sauvignon introduced a new digital evaluation system. The tasting sheets have been replaced by tablets, which allow the judges and especially the panel chairs to be more efficient and focus on the tasting instead of the paperwork. “The digital evaluation is safer, faster and more accurate as it prevents manual mistakes. It also enables us to gather more information for statistics and analyse the tasters’ profiles closer.” Says Thomas Costenoble, director of the Concours Mondial du Sauvignon.

The competition’s judges had the opportunity to test and use the technology over the two days of tasting with great results:

“It makes a big difference to the paper evaluation” says Tibor Vittec, panel chair at the competition “I will always vote for the digital one because it’s easy, clever and intuitive and it gives me more time to concentrate on the tasting itself”.

“It was the first time for me using a digital evaluation system and it was a great experience. First of all, because it’s clearly helping us save time and second, because it prevents us from making mistakes such as missing a field and then losing time reviewing and correcting it.” adds Jonas de Maere, a judge at the Concours Mondial du Sauvignon. “It also helps judges stick to their first and true opinion, as they can’t change their mind later under the influence of other members of the panel and change their scores.”

A new feature on the tablets allows for real time results by adding up the points of all evaluations within the same panel.

“It’s great! The tablet counts for you so you can see right away if a wine will receive a medal or not. “explains Ingrid Larmoyeur, a judge at the competition.

After being implemented at the Concours Mondial du Sauvignon, the digital evaluation system will also be used at the international wine competition Concours Mondial de Bruxelles in Beijing from May 10-13.