London Wine Fair (LWF) has announced the theme of this year’s Icon Tasting: Battle of the Bubbles. 

This follows last year’s theme, Judgement of London, which paid homage to Steven Spurrier’s 1976 Judgement of Paris event, where French and Californian wines were pitted against each other to commemorate the US Bicentennial. 

Set to take place on May 19, Battle of the Bubbles will be a double-blind tasting in which Champagnes go head-to-head with sparkling wines from across the globe. 

This comes at a time when Champagne sales are suffering a steep decline, while the Drinks Retailing trends report shows growth for sparkling wine giants like Freixenet. 

For the LWF standoff, the wines will be selected by Sarah Abbott MW, co-founder of The Old Vine Conference and IWSC committee judge, and Ronan Sayburn MS, CEO of the Court of Master Sommeliers. 

JUDGING 

The wines will then be judged by 20 experts from within the UK wine industry, including Sam Caporn MW; Giles Fallowfield; Matthieu Longuere MS and Jane Rakison. 

The tasting will take place under examination conditions in a private room at Olympia. Wines will be tasted in pairs according to style, grape varieties, terroir, age and production methods. Twelve pairs of wine will be tasted over a period of three hours. 

Each wine will be scored out of 10, with half marks allowed. Final scores will be calculated out of 200, based on the total from all 20 judges. 

The overall score will be announced on Centre Stage at Olympia on May 21 at 2pm. 

Abbott said: “Sparkling wine is a booming and dynamic category which is out-performing Champagne in the UK market. Yet, the hegemony of Champagne in prestige perception seems unassailable. I’m excited to see how these great wines are assessed by our crack team of judges when tasted blind.” 

Head of London Wine Fair, Hannah Tovey, added: “Last year’s Judgement of London became one of the key talking points of the show, with the world of wine holding its collective breath for the results. This year’s iteration is set to be every bit as exciting. As with last year, this is all about celebrating excellence across the world’s finest wines, and we are proud to host what is expected to be one of the world’s most anticipated tastings at London Wine Fair this year.”