With teeth stained dark purple and his brain swimming with thoughts of another career, a wine judge ponders the elements that make up the pros and cons of wine competitions.

By Dan Berger

I sat there blankly. It was late in the day. My teeth were stained dark purple, my brain was swimming with thoughts of another career, and my tongue was numb.

I had done this before, many times. Friends in other fields always think I'm having a grand old time, like going out with buddies for a brew. Instead, I always end up prone on my bed in some smoke-filled, ``non-smoking'' hotel room in some remote city, wondering why I do this.

I am a wine judge. I am one of those people who late-night TV talk show host Jay Leno and others in his line of work occasionally poke fun at in their routines. ``Hey, was 2 o'clock a good year?'' Ha, ha.

Exhaustion is a part of this job. Judging wine is tiring -- mentally fatiguing in much the same way that a chess match is. Chess players lose as much weight during a competition as do other athletes. Somehow I never lose weight, but I get wiped out, nonetheless.

Evaluating wine isn't a lot of laughs. For one thing, it takes an enormous amount of concentration. Also, you don't have to be reminded that the sip you just took is about the 90th time since breakfast that you have taken a slug of something with alcohol in it.

Alcohol is drying. At some point early in the process, my mouth dries out. It is then that I realize that Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon act almost as well on my tongue as would an exfoliant. Two hours into this, my gums begin to sense pain. Just past lunch, I suspect my nose has decided to skip out on the rest of the day: I can't smell as acutely.

I take a 10-minute break in the patio, until the smokers congregating out there finally force me back into the judging room. As I enter, the smell of alcohol pervades my nose, and I am pleased that I actually can smell again.

The problems with wine competitions don't simply revolve around mental and physical weariness. They also involve such esoteric elements as: Is this wine typical of its variety, and if so, is it too typical?

Case in point: Recently, a San Diego, California, wine merchant was a judge on a panel of three at a wine competition. They were double-blind evaluating Sauvignon Blancs. Two of the judges said a particular wine was worth only a bronze medal at best. The merchant said it was clearly a gold medal wine.

A debate ensued. At last, the merchant said, ``I think this wine is from New Zealand. It's a great example of Sauvignon Blanc from that country.''

It was, and his fellow judges agreed, finally, and awarded it a gold medal. The wine was 1997 Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, an excellent buy at $10.

I can tell similar stories from just about every wine competition I have ever judged, and a few that I have coordinated. That's because wine judging is not rocket science. It is human judgment fraught with pitfalls.

Today's major wine competitions are better than they have ever been. Judges are more skilled than they were 10 or 15 years ago, and the judgings themselves have been greatly improved to eliminate errors. Still, there are odd situations that pop up now and then.

For instance, some judges are very sensitive to a particular flaw, such as sulfur dioxide. Even the tiniest whiff of it and they immediately discard the wine from their medal consideration list. Other judges simply can't smell sulfur.

Some judges have a predilection for oak; some detest even the slightest hint of it.

One wine competition I don't judge any more is the Riverside International in Riverside, California. That's because I am its judging chairman. I pick the judges and run the back room, and I am, quite naturally, proud of the quality of the results we achieve. Occasionally I'm irritated, however, when my judges miss a great wine.

This happened during this year's competition, in the Sauvignon Blanc class. There were seven gold medals awarded, but, in my opinion, an eighth wine should have been there -- 1997 Hogue Cellars Fume Blanc ($8), a wine that got only a silver medal.

The panel that judged the Sauvignon Blancs told me the class was difficult to judge. I was not mollified. The Hogue wine is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the great wines of the vintage. I was redeemed, however, when I noted that Hogue's 1996 Semillon ($10.50) won a Chairman's Award (a unanimous gold medal).

I was a judge at the San Francisco Wine Competition this year, which awarded its prize for best red wine to the superb 1995 Joseph Phelps Insignia ($75), a Meritage-style red wine blend from the Stag's Leap District of California's Napa Valley.

Late last year, I also judged a unique wine competition, the Sydney International, in which food is served with each wine. Although the majority of the wines in that event are from Australia, many of the winners wind up on U.S. store shelves.

And it's amazing how wines change when they are paired with foods.

Are the results of wine competitions worth having? If you are a wine buyer and want some sense of the range of quality and how that relates to price, wine competition results are an inexpensive way to learn more about the wines you may buy.

For a booklet of the results of the Riverside International Wine Competition, send $2 to Riverside International Wine Competition, 18745 Bert Rd., Riverside, California 92508.

For results of the San Francisco wine competition, log onto the web site, http://www.sfwinecomp.com/html/index2.shtml.

To get results of the Sydney event, log onto http://www.winetitles.com.au/auswine/news/98119.html.

(Dan Berger writes the ``Berger on Wine'' column for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.)

(c) 1998, Dan Berger. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.