The Decanter World Wine Awards has come under fire for its ‘damaging exploitation of natural resources’, with environmentalists claiming it is a ‘gold medal polluter’.
Fossil fools
The green group Taste Wines and Drink Dubious Liquids Ecologically (TWADDLE) said the world’s largest wine competition was being ‘completely irresponsible’ by using a high proportion of so called ‘fossil fools’ in its tastings.
‘They don’t just pollute the atmosphere with their irritating outdated opinions,’ said TWADDLE’s Rio Cycle. ‘They are also incredibly bad for the planet because of all the hot air they release while they taste.
‘And the magazine tastings are even worse.’
Refining raw materials
The process of creating fossil fools is slow and expensive. It takes time to extract them from their armchair and a significant amount of effort to refine them from their natural state of casual misogyny, sexism and superiority.
‘Frankly,’ Cycle told Fake Booze, ‘in their crude state, they’re not much use for anything except as an adviser to Donald Trump or an old-school wine merchant.’
Eco-friendly alternatives
TWADDLE has called on the competition to move to a higher proportion of ‘sustainable tasters’.
Influencers, they said, were ideal since they ‘renewed themselves naturally every 24 hours’, while podcast operators were a good alternative since they were ‘extremely low impact.’
These tasters are described as ‘echo friendly’ since they repeat what everyone else is saying.
It’s quiet. Too quiet…
The DWWA has been criticised not just for the type of tasters that it is using, but also for the sheer number that it is burning through every day.
‘They’ve scooped up every taster over 50 in the UK who knows what they’re doing – and quite a few who don’t,’ said Eton-Anne Oxford of fine wine merchants Barely Bothers and Crudd. ‘There are no sommeliers in the restaurants, no journalists writing articles, even Wine Twitter is quiet.
‘Frankly, it’s rather nice.’
Frack and fruin
The World Wine Awards told Fake Booze that it took its responsibilities seriously, and was planning to ‘plant a big bag of cash for every 1000 entries’ that they receive.
‘We’re very mindful of sustainability,’ said DWWA organiser Hugh Jinkum. ‘Particularly our own.’
Green issues, he said, were ‘a priority – specifically turning everyone else green with envy because we’re absolutely coining it in.’
Fake Booze asked the competition whether it could come and judge too, like everyone else in the drinks world, but was told to ‘frack off.’
Read here about the plan to reduce the spread of bad judging with the Taste, Track and Trace scheme
