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What is a Master-winning wine?

20 June 2025 By Patrick Schmitt

Every so often in the Global Wine Masters, we come across a sample that attains the ultimate accolade of Master. We quiz our judges on what moves them to award such a special medal.

If you’re really good, you’ll gain a gold, but a master-winner is a wine that excites

As chair of the competitions, Patrick Schmitt MW explains in a video that can be watched here, a Master-winner is a wine that achieves an average of 97 points or more (out of 100) from our judges – which requires a set of exacting tasters to agree that a sample is outstanding.

But what is it about a particular wine that moves our judges to award such high scores – if not full marks?

Siobhan Turner MW, a chair of the judging panels comments, “I’m looking for a wine that excites me… you can have Golds which are wines that you really enjoy, wines that you think are really good, but for me, a Master-level wine is something that makes you go ‘ooh’ and you get excited about it.”

Another chair of the judges, Jonathan Pedley MW, adds that a Master-winner must have all the hallmarks of a great wine, which is something with “intensity, on the nose and palate, in terms of fruit and other characteristics, and we’re looking for complexity; so not just a sort of one-dimensional wine, but with many layers of, say, fruit and oak and [flavours from] maturity.”

Continuing he says, “Then, and in a way most important of all, the wine needs to be harmonious: so no rough edges; a wine with finesse. And so it’s that combination of intensity, complexity and harmony that takes a wine from just being, say, a Silver or Gold to that really special Master status.”

Schmitt adds, “A Master might not always achieve 97 points or more on average, but be something that really excites us and is a really brilliant example of its category.”

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He also says, “I find it quite easy to identify when a wine is truly great because I’m writing so much about it, and for me, that’s a sign that is a complex wine, and that it’s really excited all my senses: so the aromas, the feeling in the mouth, the flavours and also the sensations throughout my body – not that I’m swallowing it…”

Concluding he comments, “I’m trying to remain professional, but quite often a Master is a wine that is very hard not to want to stop and drink there and then.”