The gold medal awarded to a bottle at 2.50 euros: the judges of an international wine competition trapped by piquette

2.50 euros. It’s the prize for the bottle of wine that won the gold medal of the “Gilbert & Gaillard International Wine Competition”. At the origin of the deception, Éric Boschman, elected best sommelier in Belgium in 1988, within the framework of the broadcast of the RTBF “We are not pigeons”. The one who is also an actor presented this bottle, yet bought in a supermarket, as “exceptional” to his colleagues.

For the occasion, the sommelier had put all the chances on his side: the picket had been disguised as a good bottle, via a dummy label, a logo in the shape of a pigeon, and the name of “Château Colombier”, a wine supposedly produced from grape varieties located in Côtes de Sambre and Meuse (Wallonia). To everyone’s surprise, the wine won the competition.

The particularly laudatory jury

During the blind tasting, the jury was indeed particularly complimentary. “Bright garnet red color. Shy nose combining stone fruits, currants, discreet oak. Suave, nervous and rich mouth with clean young aromas that promise a nice complexity. Evolution on fine spices and a touch of soot. very interesting“.

For Eric Boschman, this joke reveals a much less funny trend: the proliferation of this kind of competition and the lack of professionalism of some judges.