Today, I’m closing the loop and following up on the contest to find the next German Wine Queen, who was officially crowned last week in a final gala event featuring the six finalists culled from Germany’s 13 wine regions. The winner was Sonja Christchurch from the Mosel, who is a recent business graduate and has a day job as a wine journalist (right on!).
It’s interesting to see what the Wine Queen contestants have to go through to get into the finals and then be chosen for the top 3 slots, which includes the following tests:
- A blind tasting
- Describing a wine region (presumably a German one) within 45 seconds (which can’t be easy using long German words that probably take 15 seconds each to pronounce)
- Identify six errors in a film about the Middle Rhine region (this one is my personal fave)
- Stand up to an 80-member jury of wine experts, politicians and journalists
80-member jury? Are you kidding me? Masters of Wine candidates don’t need to do something that difficult, for Pete’s sake…
Anyway, you can check out a (very roughly translated) summary of the event here.
Congrats to the Mosel, and to the new Queen. I may start a petition soon to implement the Wine Queen program in the U.S. In my spare time.
Cheers!
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Comments
Dylan
This was my favorite rough result from Google Translate: "Your job at the wine magazine, they'll probably leave to rest for the coming year once. What they are now the most happy?"
1WineDude
It now crowned the pleasure mostly gives!
Francesco
Now thats the type of girlfriend im lookin for!
1WineDude
Great angle… hadn't thought about that!
El Jefe
Seems kind of like Diner: "We all know most marriages depend on a firm grasp of football trivia."
But clearly, we are long overdue for a US Wine Queen. I humbly offer my services as judge in the swimsuit grape stomp portion of the competition.
1WineDude
I offer my services to judge the talent competition, that is, if the talent portion involves drinking.
1WineDude
Hey, don't sell the US too short now…
Here's hoping that the Mosel Queen can use her powers to avoid adding too much extra petrol flavor to those fine Riesling grapes!
El Jefe
So, it’s the same old crap? US wine queens just can’t match the elegance of European wine queens? Are we going to drag out the same tired arguments about wine queen terroir?
1WineDude
Yeah – our wine ladies can stand up to any 80-member panel! By the way, how do I get on that panel??
Howard Barnum
No, El Jefe, we're going to whine out the same tired arguments about drag queens' terriers…
Steve Heimoff
Not for Pete's sake — for Heintz's sake.
Steve Heimoff
Maybe we can combine your Wine Queen contest with my Hottest Winemaker contest! A fusion, as it were.
1WineDude
Well, you can't beat that idea when it comes to publicity – sign me up!
Now I just have to think about hot winemaker nominations…