If drinking a glass of wine is like taking a walk in the park, then tasting and scoring a hundred wines is more like running a marathon. Wine judging takes discipline, focus, and endurance–not to mention a lot of crackers and celery!
Since judging my first wine contest in 2025, I’ve been involved with several wine competitions in Texas, both as a judge and in behind-the-scenes supporting roles. I love the challenge of tasting wines blind, and the joy of heaping recognition on an outstanding bottle.
If you’re curious about what it’s like to be a wine judge, here are my answers to ten common questions about the job.
The photos in this article are from my most recent judging assignment, the 2027 Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo (FWSSR) Vine2Wine International Wine Competition.
How do you become a wine judge?
Usually, you get invited. A current judge or a contest organizer recognizes your experience with wine and brings you into the fold.
Judging opportunities often lead to more judging opportunities when you’ve demonstrated you can do the work. For my first wine-judging gig, I was seated as an alternate when a tenured judge couldn’t make it. (This is common.)
There are small and large wine competitions, and they differ widely in their scope and prestige. The bigger and more established the competition, the more qualified the judging pool tends to be.
Most contests strive to have a mix of perspectives from within the industry: critics/journalists, winemakers, retail buyers, sommeliers, and educators. Formal wine credentials (such as those from WSET and CMS) are preferred–but not necessarily a requirement if you have comparable experience. Some contests incorporate consumer judges into their scoring systems, where the only qualification is that you’re a person who drinks wine.
If you’re eager to get started judging, you can always reach out to your local wine competitions and ask them if they’re looking for new judges. Most are happy to have a list of alternates they can call upon to fill a vacant seat.
What makes a good wine judge?
A competent palate is essential, of course–but it’s not the only thing.
A good judge is punctual, professional, and easy to get along with. Judging panels can last all day. In many cases you will be discussing the wines with your colleagues as you work through the flights. Uncommunicative or know-it-all judges make the hours drag by.
You have to able to be as objective as possible. That means setting aside personal preferences and judging each wine on its merits–even the varieties that you don’t drink regularly or don’t prefer. (Flavored fizzy Moscato, anyone?) Formal wine education helps a lot, as it gives you a repeatable framework for assessing quality.
If you have a real knowledge gap (for instance, I don’t feel that I’m yet qualified to judge sake flights), you may be excused from those assignments. But in general, wine judges are expected to be able to deliver measured, informed scores and comments on any commercial wine style.
Discretion is important. Familiarize yourself with the contest’s expectations around photos and social media. Judges also should refrain from trash-talking any wines or discussing results before they are announced to the public.
Finally, you need to be able to taste decisively and at a steady pace, stay on task, and handle yourself around an alarming amount of alcohol.
Do you really drink all that wine?
Believe it or not, this is the question I get the most when people see my photos from wine contests and trade tastings. The answer is no–I don’t drink any of the competition wine!
My ability as an evaluative taster starts to decline quickly around my second glass of wine…and the last thing I want is to be the weakest link on a panel.
Judges always get spit cups and dump buckets at each judging station, and you’re expected to use them constantly. It’s not unusual to taste around 100 wines during a judging day. Think of it this way: A 750-ml bottle of wine holds about 25 ounces. If you swallowed just one ounce from each glass, that would be like drinking four bottles of wine by yourself!
Even when spitting at a long tasting, the alcohol can creep up on you. Judges counter this effect by eating a big breakfast, drinking plenty of water, and exercising extra care when approaching a high-octane flight, like fortified wines.
Straight talk here: Assessing wine while spitting is an acquired skill. It looks gross. It feels unnatural. It does change my perception of wine–especially its body and finish–which I then have to adjust for. Spitting also depletes your saliva, which can affect the accuracy of your palate.
I won’t pretend that I got used to it right away when I started tasting professionally. But there really is no alternative to spitting if you’re going to be fair to the last wines of the day.
How does blind tasting work?
Wines are served in identical glasses and identified by a number for scoring and discussion. They’re poured in another room or behind a partition, so that judges never see the label or bottle shape. In reputable contests, you won’t know whose wine you’re tasting unless you happen to recognize a wine from memory.
Entrants are usually grouped into flights of similar varieties and styles. For example, if you’re tasting Cabernet Franc, you’ll know you’re tasting Cab Franc–and there may be 10 or 20 of them on the table in front of you.
Judges may also get a few other details, including the composition of the blend, the alcohol and residual sugar levels, and the vintage, region, and price range (sometimes). The idea is to give the judges just enough info that they can evaluate the wine for what it’s trying to be, and not so much info that their biases could intrude.
Organizers go to great lengths to preserve the integrity of blind judging. Judges are never allowed in the rooms where wine is being staged and poured, and many facilities even have separate restrooms and meal areas for the judges and the pourers so nothing is overheard.
Sometimes the wines are revealed after the scores are in, but often they’re not. Wine judges usually find out the winners when everyone else does–when the press release comes out.
Do wine judges get paid?
Sometimes. Many smaller competitions are unpaid. Volunteers will at least get a catered lunch and breakfast, an afternoon happy hour, and maybe some wine swag.
Other competitions offer a flat stipend or a per diem. At the very top end of the wine industry (we’re talking Master of Wine/Master Sommelier level), judging fees and allowances may be more generous, and the travel opportunities more enticing.
While getting paid to taste wine might sound like a dream come true, judges aren’t doing it for the big bucks. It’s all about the experience, the resume-building, and the personal connections. Tasting dozens of similar wines together is a marvelous way to develop your palate–and you’re doing it in the company of people with years of judging and purchasing experience.
And then there’s the pleasure of awarding prizes to deserving wines. Most judges are huge wine nerds (some are also winemakers) and they know how hard it is to make a wine that can survive scrutiny and ascend to the gold-medal tier.
Awards have a real commercial benefit–especially to smaller wineries–and can help them sell bottles and gain trust among new drinkers. I’ll never forget the first time I walked into a winery tasting room and saw a bottle wearing a medal that I helped to award. It’s a really great feeling!
Are there any really bad wines that you have to taste?
This is another question I get all the time. I think it’s because I judge a lot of Texas wines, and Texas wine’s reputation is seriously lagging behind its current level of quality.
“Open” competitions that allow home winemakers to enter may be a different story. However, all the contests I’ve worked are limited to commercially available wines.
Most wines marketed to consumers are at least acceptable in quality. I’ve judged some wines that I wouldn’t choose to drink again and certainly wouldn’t buy–but nothing that made me fear for my health.
For a winemaker, entering competitions costs money and time. If a wine is there, it’s because someone thought it was good enough to put in front of a room of professional judges.
That’s not to say that every wine gets (or deserves) a medal. Seriously flawed wines do show up in competition. Too much oak, volatile acidity (nail polish remover smell), poor sugar/acid balance, unripe fruit, and funky, “off” aromas are flaws that commonly prevent wines from medaling.
What if a wine is corked?
All the wine problems discussed in the above section are (usually) the winemaker’s responsibility. Other faults–like cork taint or oxidation from a leaking bottle–may not be. Our job as judges is to figure out if a wine is showing as it’s supposed to.
Cork taint affects a small but still significant percentage of wines. The effects of cork-taint aromas can be very subtle to totally gnarly. If a judge detects a corked wine or other packaging-related issue, they will ask for a re-pour so that the wine can be judged fairly. Wineries usually send an extra bottle or two for just this purpose.
Do you have to take notes on the wines?
Some competitions ask for tasting comments from judges, and others only require scores. If tasting notes are collected, they are kept on file in case there’s any questions later about a medal result. Judges’ comments may also be shared with the winery for quality feedback or for use in marketing materials.
As a wine writer, I take notes almost reflexively while tasting. So a scratch pad and pen are always at the table–even if the contest didn’t ask for notes.
There’s rarely time to write more than a line or two, but I find that jotting down a few aroma and structural notes helps me move more quickly from first impressions to final score. (And to keep the wines straight in my memory on especially crowded flights!)
What if the judges disagree about a wine?
It happens. A lot.
Tasting is an imprecise science, and there’s a huge range of wines that are somewhere in between, “This wine is inarguably flawed” and “This wine is the best thing in the whole lineup and it’s obvious to everyone.”
In some contests, judges record their scores independently, they’re averaged out (sometimes outlier scores are dropped), and you move on. But in other contest formats, consensus is sought and the judges will need to talk things over.
Here’s something I’ve noticed that’s been true across lots of different panels: Judges tend to be closely aligned on the best wines. This suggests that top-scoring wines have shared qualities (complexity, balance, purity of flavor) that are consistently recognizable to trained palates. Even in blind settings, even independent of wine style. The truly subpar wines stick out, too.
It’s in the middle of the pack where disagreements form. And usually, it’s not because judges aren’t noticing the same traits.
Everybody weights things differently. A slight shortcoming in a wine for one judge (unbalanced alcohol, for instance, or cooked-fruit flavors) may be a deal-breaker for another.
If initial scores diverge, the next step is for the panel leader to open a discussion. Judges will compare notes, and one or two people may be persuaded to nudge a score up or down. Sometimes one judge has more experience with a grape variety or winemaking technique, and the others will defer to him or her.
If you’re the holdout that’s keeping a wine from the next medal tier–or the lone advocate for a wine that everyone else dislikes–you may be called upon to explain your reasoning. This is where being an articulate taster with a solid technical vocabulary becomes so useful. It’s also important to be able to offer your conclusions quickly and concisely.
Take a hypothetical upper-middle tier Viognier. A comment like, “It’s good, but not great,” isn’t as helpful to a panel as, “The floral and stone fruit aromas have lovely intensity and the body is adequate, but the finish is very short.” However, nobody has time for an 800-word tasting note, either. Efficiency is key.
Observing and participating in panel discussions is probably my favorite part of wine competitions. Veteran judges have so much to teach about evaluative tasting and all the things that can go wrong in the process of winemaking–as well as how to think about wine quality in general.
What’s the hardest part of wine judging?
The pace! At a consumer wine tasting, you may have 4-6 glasses on the table and perhaps an hour to taste and discuss them. Similarly, on the blind-tasting exams for WSET Levels 3 and 4, you’re allowed about 15 minutes per wine. That’s a brisk speed, for sure–but enough time to consider all aspects of the wine and double-check your assessment.
In contrast, competitions may have hundreds or even thousands of entries that are divided among a limited number of judges. You’re expected to do a visual/nose/palate assessment very quickly and then draft a score. The whole process of initial tasting, re-evaluating, and panel deliberation rarely lasts more than a few minutes per glass.
On my first flight on my first-ever judging panel, I attempted to taste all the wines twice before scoring them and I soon fell behind the other judges. It felt grueling–impossible.
Even though I now have more practice churning through wines at industry tastings, it’s a challenging speed to maintain for hours on end. Experienced judges will still gulp when they see a fat stapled schedule of flights, or a cart with a big load of dessert wines rattling down the aisle at the end of the day.
Despite the occasional stress and strenuousness, judging wine is a lot of fun! It’s also a responsibility that I take very seriously–every bottle represents someone’s harvest and someone’s craft. Those hours at the judges’ table have made me a more disciplined taster, a more diplomatic critic, and a more ardent lover of wine and its diversity of styles.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes of wine competitions. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask ’em in the comments!
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